I regularly get angry emails from people who are convinced that I’m single-handedly destroying the world with my opinion which is supposedly funded by “big oil” and the Koch brothers. Of course, having nothing else, that’s all part of the huge lie people like Dr. Mann likes to push, like this bit of libel over the weekend:
I’m dealing with Dr. Mann’s libel separately, but for the record I’ve never gotten a dime from the Koch brothers, or “big oil”, nor am I a “denier for hire”, and Dr. Mann knows this because he backed down from a similar claim in the past when challenged on it. Now, knowing that, he’s demonstrated malice, fulfilling one of the tests for libel.
That aside, and along the same lines, I recently got an email that included this claim:
“…your pathetic little attempt at pushing climate denialism isn’t working. Places like Real Climate and Skeptical Science are putting your little enterprise to shame.”
So, I thought I’d check and run some numbers to see if I’m shamed or not. Climateers often talk about their climate change cause being a “communications problem”. The numbers I’ve found seem to support that. Witness the new divergence problem:
These are rankings from Alexa.com Lower numbers are better, for example, Google is ranked #1.
It seems that it’s not just globally strong for WUWT, but in the USA too. WUWT is about 8 times more popular in the USA than “Skeptical Science” (SkS), and about 15 times more popular than Real Climate (RC). See the Rank in Country column three:
Look at the bounce rate under Engagement Metrics. Note that over 2/3rds of visitors to SkS don’t engage further. Note also the time on site. WUWT readers spend three times more reading than SkS and almost 9 times more than at RC.
Hmm, well since the email was sent anonymously (as most of the rants are), and I don’t know where the person was located, maybe they were talking about Australia where SkS is located? Maybe that’s where they are kicking our butt? Note column three, Rank in Country (AU):
Eh, guess not- the ratio holds. RC doesn’t even have enough traffic in AU to do a comparison.
Even with Dana Nuccitelli’s signing on with the Guardian and making sure that every time he bashes me and/or WUWT in his column he uses a [nofollow] tag or web citation link to prevent web traffic, it seems that he hasn’t succeeded in keeping WUWT down nor in significantly growing his audience on “Skeptical Science” in the USA or Australia.
Maybe it’s in the UK, where the Guardian is located. Surely SkS is beating me there with all that mass media driven Guardian backed firepower? Note column three, Rank in Country (GB):
Apparently not.
Let’s expand the comparison a bit. My subscription to Alexa allows me to run up to 10 comparisons. I identified what I think to be the most widely read websites on climate that aren’t mixed in with part of a larger organization, making tracking their stats impossible. This of course precludes places like “Climate Progress”, which are part of the larger “Think Progress” or the Guardian, which has many other departments.
While I wish I could run more than 10 on the same graph, here’s what I learned, again lower numbers are better:
Surprisingly, not only is WUWT leading the pack by a significant margin, it has now surpassed the newspaper “Grist” which has become something of a climate centric enterprise. They also have a paid staff.
Note also Al Gore’s “Climate Reality Project”, which is dead last. It appears that Gore’s million$ don’t translate into traffic. That’s some “reality drop” for him.
That bump that Climate Depot got in late July was from being featured on “The Drudge Report” by the way. Good show Marc Morano.
The metrics are also telling:
So to whoever wrote that email, thanks. It made me look deeper.
Truly, it looks like the climateers have a communications problem. People don’t seem to be engaging them like they used to. Personally I think people are seeing through it all, and angry, irrational, rants from people like Mike Mann don’t seem to be helping his cause at all. I can understand their cognitive dissonance though, because in the world where they exist, where everything is grant/funding driven, surely some former TV weather guy in Chico California and his collection of “flying monkeys” (in SkS parlance) can’t possibly be doing what he’s doing without some massive “big oil” funding behind it. Right? Surely the Koch brothers must be secretly paying for it, like Mann thinks. The truth is, WUWT exists on donations, some advertising revenue sharing managed by wordpress.com, and stamina. I couldn’t live on it, but I’m sure that won’t stop people like Dr. Mann from imagining all sorts of nefarious schemes, like his hilarious Christmas calendar episode.
I think that if I was not a broadcaster, I wouldn’t have the stamina to keep WUWT on the air. As a broadcaster, I learned long ago that dead air peppered with occasional feature rants doesn’t keep viewers coming back. It might work for awhile, but eventually people tire of it. That’s the lesson here. We can be thankful that we have so many examples of climate ugliness in the realm of the Climateers, because they drive people to the other side.
But most of all, thanks to my readers and volunteer moderators and contributors, because without all of you, WUWT wouldn’t be where it is.
Thanks Anthony, great post.
The Facebook “likes” stat made me smile.
So do we need to help pay for a lawyer?
‘course time on site could just be because we’re slow readers over here ;0)
He wants to goad you into suing him to distract you from what’s really causing his pathetic little enterprise trouble. That would be good information.
I am 97% certain that a check from Big Oil will arrive in the mail any day now, probably before 2027 anyway. 😉
I have been learning of late, that at least a few people out there who believe in AGW, don’t even know of the existence of SkS or RealClimate, and even if they did, they don’t think blogs have any reason discussing science anyway- and what are SkS and RC, but more blogs?
Anthony: I have a few climate websites I follow, WUWT, Bishop Hill, IceAgeNow, Real Science. I always spend a lot of time at WUWT because there are some very interesting, informative comments, and the people who comment here are dedicated and know what they are talking about. There is at times some dialog which gets a little heated but that is part of the engaging and the putting forth of opinions. Keep at it, don’t get discouraged. I don’t use twitter, I see too many people like Mann who put out off the cuff ridiculous remarks which they should read the next morning. Much like the mornings after when too much to drink and a big mouth embarrass’s one.
The “skeptics are funded by big coal & oil” accusation has served AGW promoters well since late 1995 when it started getting media traction, mostly because nobody in the mainstream media shot it down despite it being such an easy target. As AGW itself heads ever closer to going completely over the cliff, we really should pay more attention to how the accusation only has ever really had one source, along with who it was that pushed it along in the first place: http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=326
When AGW only has two legs to stand on for its defense, “settled science” and “corrupt skeptics”, if you yank out the latter one for all the world to see, they will more readily be able to watch skeptics chisel out the last bits holding together the first leg.
Thank you for everything you do. Sometimes you need to publish a story like this to remind people that common sense does win out in the end.
Great news, Anthony. WUWT is [and always has been] a class-act, full of information, analysis, and intelligent discussion.
Not bad for a little old meteorologist/tinkerer working out of his garage in Chico.
Contribution on the way
I guess the ‘consensus’ is not what they think it is?
On the basis of how Armstrong Williams was damaged by accusations that he was paid to publish opinions he — probably — held anyway, I submit that comparable allegations that Watts is paid for his opinions is damaging.
The entire voting public of Australia has seen what is happening with the warmist brigade and voted overwhelmingly in a record landslide to dump the left/green alliance. The primary campaign platform was the carbon DIOXIDE tax which will be repealed a soon as parliament sits.
Rock on WUWT keep up the good work!
Mann, it is you who are being a “Koch”. Instead of insulting anyone who has the temerity to disagree with your bigoted, illogical and unscientific view of the climate, why not post on WUWT?
Somehow, I doubt you will, because instead of listening to sycophants, you will face a genuine debate.
Mann, I challenge your “science”! Are you prepared to debate?
So is Watts the best front man that the Koch Bros could buy? Well, Watts has rather well argued that he would be. If the Koch Bros wanted to buy a front man. And if they wanted a front man to speak about climate change.
Seems to me Watts should use his metrics to offer his consulting services to Mann. Pretty apparent that Mann needs better front men.
It has been known for high profile individuals to “hide” income by directing it through proxies.
So, Anthony, how many millions of dollars has Kenji received from the Koch bros and Big Oil?
Michael Mann is about as bright as I’d expect a mainstream (i.e., political) climate scientist to be, which is not very.
Perfect come-back!
Hit ’em with the TRUTH about AGW. Hit ’em with the TRUTH about your blog numbers!
Keep up the great effort.
Are you going to start a cookie jar to assist with funding the libel action?
The truth about AGW is it’s probably happening somewhat, but is a minor player in a larger orchestra.
What Dollis said – bingo.
Sounds like Mikey is starting to sweat over his emails …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/09/manns-emails-to-be-subject-of-state-supreme-court-case/
Typical leftist propaganda, “it’s the rich guys or the big corporations” causing all the trouble. Personally, I am disgusted by the big oil companies’ “green” ads!! There is no need for them to make excuses for what they do. Their real crimes are, as oligopolies, charging the prices that they do and screwing their shareholders by paying executives way more than they are worth while paying poor dividends on their stocks. Note that when the lefties are in power they never do anything about the interlocking boards of directors that approve each others ridiculous compensation packages. I have been in the board room and know that of which I speak.
The people visiting RealClimate and such sites are old people out for one more tour before the thing disappears completely or they are youngsters terrified by their grandparents or great grandparents.
Way to go Anthony. Keep up the excellent work.
I would make a joke that Mr Mann is full of crap, but he may take that as a conspiracy in that Koch owns Angelsoft toilet tissue.
Speaking the truth is way better than a court case.
Anthony, love what you’re doing here. You’re saying what needs to be said in a clear and concise manner. All the best.
This is a genuine reply I got for posting a WUWT link:
“]What utter rubbish you continuously post. Anything from watssupwiththst is basically automatically completely flawed.”
You must be doing something right Mr Watts.
Jim G: “Typical leftist propaganda, “it’s the rich guys or the big corporations” causing all the trouble.”
That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Every State is a coroporation. Same is true for every Union of States, Counties, Parishes, Townships, and so on. And quite aside any truth to AGW, it is beyond question that it is driven by the statements of scientists on the corporate payroll.
When I first started looking into the science behind global warming not too long ago I ended up at most of those sites at one time or another. I would say I was in the warmist camp by default so I kept going to skeptical science and looking for answers to skeptic claims. It became increasingly clear that they were childish and more interested in propaganda than science.
I would say that the first time I really became a skeptic was when I heard an argument on a comments page (I don’t remember which one) about Mann’s hockey stick being debunked and people saying it returned. The skeptic seemed better informed and rational. I started looking into the issue (Wikipedia was no help) and that led me to climate audit. Obviously the methods were all laid bare and I was just shocked any scientist had ever done such a poor job, and further shocked that others had stood behind it. But then to see that even today alarmists could not admit it was wrong made it clear that global warming was not about science.
I think you do a great job here of collecting news, talking science and I like to read the always well informed comments from people who want to discuss the science.
“Little” was indeed the wrong word. But speaking of the audience, I recently had an occasion to read some posts from a few years back, maybe 2009, and noticed that a lot of recently familiar names were absent from the list of commenters. Do you keep any data on the longevity of your readers?
@ James Strom no, since we don’t require registration here, I don’t have that ability to track readers.
To Mann;
Let’s see those “scientific” emails you smoke and mirrors tw@t.
I imagine, writing things like “pathetic little attempt” must have felt therapeutic for the little blighter. An exercise in self-reassurance. The more removed from reality, the more therapeutic.
Jquip says:
October 14, 2013 at 4:59 pm
Jim G: “Typical leftist propaganda, “it’s the rich guys or the big corporations” causing all the trouble.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Every State is a coroporation. Same is true for every Union of States, Counties, Parishes, Townships, and so on. And quite aside any truth to AGW, it is beyond question that it is driven by the statements of scientists on the corporate payroll.”
Big difference, states are run by elected officials and they need to convince the majority of voters of their lies where corporations are run by unelected politicians who only need to convince the board/management of their lies. And my only gripe is regarding PUBLIC owned corporations which are supposed to be managed in the best interest of shareholders.
If there’s a lawsuit coming I’ll be absolutely delighted to funnel some government funding (via my salary) into your cause. I can’t believe that the oil-funding trope has survived this long, except that I can believe it – the MSM upholds any lie that helps the causes they believe to be justified. Thanks for all the great work you do, Anthony!
@Jennifer Hubbard Thanks, I have many other people saying the same thing. I have to give Dr. Mann due process first, but if it comes to that, its nice to know WUWT readers will help. I can’t be relying on the #Kochmachine, since I’m sure they’d laugh as much as you folks do at the idea.
Mikey has lost the plot, gone off the deep end, completely lost it.
Must the the stress of knowing he has ruined his own career, knowing he is now and always will be a laughing stock of a scientist, the butt of many future jokes about academic morons, idiots, grifters, con artists and all round losers.
Such a fine legacy for such a fine gentleman.
Um, well this is embarrassing, Anthony, but it’s time you knew the truth.
I, and I suspect many others, get paid by the Koch brothers to READ your blog. That’s why your numbers are so high.
Keep up the good work! 😉
I think Michael Mann has shown a long-term pattern of being thin-skinned and petty, Fred. I wouldn’t say he’s lost the plot now in particular.
“angry emails from people who are convinced that I’m single-handedly destroying the world with my opinion”
With your “opinion”?
Is that all it’s been?
Crap, you had me fooled.
Watts wrong with you. I’m outta here.
Where is my secret Koch bros. Bitcoin account? I want in!
I was just going to say: with so many agents to pay, there will not be enough dollars in circulation. Bitcoin to the rescue!
I am starting to think Mann honestly believes this stuff. He’s living in a fantasy world. He’s the Norma Desmond of climate “science.”
“convinced that I’m single handedly destroying the world”
Of course you aren’t. Jo Nova and a bunch of others are helping you.
Anthony
Your project is pre-eminent for a really very simple reason. Integrity. Can’t buy it, fake it or work a street corner for it.
More power to your elbow
“I, and I suspect many others, get paid by the Koch brothers to READ your blog.”
Hey, I want a piece of that, too!
Wow, with the amount of money the Koch Brothers and Big Oil give you Anthony, your ROI is pushing infinity. 😀
Re:
Didn’t you hear? The end of the world due to manmade global warming via carbon dioxide emissions has been called off until 2047. He’s got another 20 years after 2027 to wait for the check. (/sarc) Cheers –
I spent part of the weekend defendign the skeptic line and WUWT on the FB group “Scientific Mensa.” We seem to have some hardcore warmists there with lines likes
While I’m not sure I changed any minds, I think I did see a “Like” disappear from one of the warmist comments. 🙂 And countered most of the other points, no need to address them here. I ignored the SkS reference because I didn’t want to go off on a Cook and Lewandowski tangent.
What can I say, just keep pushing your agenda. I really would like my share of your big oil money one of these days though. 10% will do fine.
I think the original reason Alarmists were at all interesting was because they had cool toys. They were the source of a lot of satellite pictures and interesting graphs. (Your “Sea Ice Page” didn’t exist back then.) Also they were the ones you went to, if you had questions. Also, while they may have been condescending they didn’t seem so rude (in public.)
However the questions kept coming, and then, besides being rude, they started to simply snip comments. I can think of no better way to turn off readers than to ask for comments, and then disregard them. (And I am not talking about the crude comments; I am talking about the carefully thought out and politely worded comments that they axed.)
Then people started comparing their data with data from other sources, or to older data, and started to notice the “adjustments.” That was when people started to suspect the polite public face was a mask, and a cover for things going on behind the scenes. If you look back through the archives at the pre-Climategate comments you can see that even back then many were fairly certain unfriendly stuff was occurring behind the scenes, even though the evidence was slim.
Climategate made slim evidence fat, and should have been the end of the fraud, and the fact the fraud has continued has taken a lot of the fun out of the scientific side of things. Now the battle is all politics, and also “watching the pea” to see how sleight-of-hand occurs. I miss the old days, when much more scientific wonder and fascination was involved. Back then the struggle for Truth didn’t involve so much stamina, but now it does.
However stamina is required to fight the good fight. Thank you, Anthony, for all you do in the good name of Truth.
“but for the record I’ve never gotten a dime from the Koch brothers”
Maybe Mann is basing his statement on your receiving funding from Heartland, and the Koch brothers funding Heartland for the explicit purpose of undermining climate research. I guess I could see how he might come to incorrect conclusions.
REPLY: Maybe, but being a scientist he’s supposed to be exacting. RE: Heartland It was a one-time project, for which I only got half funded, and then the criminal formerly known as Gleick got in the middle of it. I approached them about the idea, not the other way around, and they located an independent donor for the project. For the record (and for the umpteenth time) I don’t get any regular funding from Heartland, I never have. All that has been answered on my FAQs page for quite some time: http://wattsupwiththat.com/about-wuwt/faqs/
-Anthony
Ghandi: ” FIrst they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they attack you, then you win.” Looks like Mann has reached Stage 3. Love that quote as I sit here by my wood fire de-sequestering carbon ;-D
Be sure to let us know when a financial need such as the conference fees a few weeks back comes up.
I worked for big oil years ago and can afford $50 in the tip jar from time to time. it makes Mann an honest man when I do.
Some commentors have changed names so you can’t really compare on the basis of names.. Though I don’t know if I was around in 2009, at one time someone else started using my name, I changed mine, they dropped out, and I continued.
Great post, Anthony.
I’m proud to be one of the “flying monkeys” if that’s what I am!!!!
I think this little Mann-Dwarf is getting pretty close to libel here.
He must know, or at least suspect that this big lie about big-oil or Koch-funding is false. I mean most of the skeptic blogs are hosted on WordPress rather than some independent big-bucks private domain. Most of the skeptical bloggers have written openly about their hard times, both financially and also with the technical logistics of managing their websites. Furthermore, if they had this big chunk of money behind them they would no doubt be running massive advertising, especially on TV, rather than the actual realty of word-of-mouth to maintain their level of traffic.
If Mann is somehow not aware of all this then I would believe that he is even dumber than he looks and acts, however that seems unlikely. Therefore I believe this is malicious and consequently, very close to intentional defamation. You should hope he keeps on talking this way, archive all the instances, and act upon them later after consulting with a lawyer that knows this field.
Thanks Anthony for this website. I have visited it routinely over the past 5 years after discovering it, and have enjoyed consistently well written articles and learned a lot about the whole debate. I also really enjoy when you include postings that deal with more general science and technology matters; while that’s not the focus of the site, it’s interesting to learn.
Again, thanks for what you do. You are fighting the good fight.
James Strom says:
October 14, 2013 at 5:03 pm
Being a long time reader, I’m always surprised at how many familiar names are in the comments of those old posts. I was also surprised that the wave of new readers brought in by Climategate hung around – there was little fall off in readership as Climategate faded from the news.
Nobody goes to WUWT any more. It’s too crowded.
🙂
Keep doing what you do, Mr. Watts, humanity will thank you for it (belatedly, as usual).
Even if I don’t always agree with you (re the murderer of 40,000 elephants in particular), it is better to disagree with an honest man than to agree with dishonorable Mann.
Why are liberals like Mann so angry all the time?
Jim G: “And my only gripe is regarding PUBLIC owned corporations which are supposed to be managed in the best interest of shareholders.”
No disagreement there. Of course, the US Government is a public owned corporation. The only real distinction between government as corporation and corporations permitted by government is the idea that being a shareholder is completely voluntary in the latter case. In the former case, not so much.
Wayne: “Love that quote as I sit here by my wood fire de-sequestering carbon ;-D”
Pity. ‘Antidesequestrationism’ is 6 letters short of the bar set by ‘antidisestablishmentarianism.’
Blaming big oil or the Koch brothers is an expression of impotence. The folks in the consensus camp don’t think they are right, they KNOW they are right. So it is impossible to fathom that some website run by volunteers can beat them by a 6 or 8 to 1 margin when all the best and brightest are supposedly in their camp. It has to be a front from some powerful organization who is pulling on the strings. The bigger the boogie man, the less impotent they feel.
The second thing that these impotent folks need to realize is that big oil many refine a lot of product but most of these firms reserves are in natural gas. The real battle for energy generation is between natural gas and coal. The more effective the consensus folks are with their messaging, the better it is for Exxon-Mobile, the Koch brothers and other “oil” companies. This makes them patsies for the boogie men they despise. Perhaps the IPCC really stands for impotent patsies for coal collapse .
Anthony, thanks for your mad dedication that makes all of this possible. I have long held that everyone of importance in the world of climate science reads WUWT, if only to see what’s the latest thing that the skeptics and heretics are up to … very well done, my friend, and at an immense cost in time and tending.
With my highest regards,
w.
Is Michael Mann really the best front man that the Billions in government funding of AGW alarmism can buy? Another example of alarming government waste!
We’re with you, A-th-y — all the way.
While you and the others fight it out down there on the playing field,
we’re here. We don’t always sing in harmony, and sometimes,
we’re a little off key,
(and sometimes, we get into fisticuffs up here in the stands, heh)
but, we’re here.
“…Walk on, walk on…(dear An-th-y),… you’ll never walk alone.”
Here’s to you, Anthony,
and ALL you WUWT warriors for truth,
“… walk on… with hope in your heart(s), …”
and know:
TRUTH WILL WIN.
.
.
.
“When you’re kicked by a jackass,
consider the source.”
(P.S. Advice from someone who knows (in case you seriously consider doing this): don’t sue Mann; the anguish as a litigant that you will inevitably go through and the free publicity Mann would gain far outweigh the small potential benefit; your stellar reputation shines far too brilliantly to be tarnished in the slightest by the smear of a such a tiny man. Ignore him. That is, after all, what he hates the most. Heh.)
That tweet is so offensively wrong, and certainly known to be wrong. I second Roger’s cookie jar suggestion.
Tim B says:
October 14, 2013 at 5:17 pm
Um, well this is embarrassing, Anthony, but it’s time you knew the truth.
I, and I suspect many others, get paid by the Koch brothers to READ your blog. That’s why your numbers are so high.
Isn’t it a stipulation that you remain anonymous?
It is for me.
Oh, wait… never mind.
WUWT is where citizens of the world learn about the science of global climate interactions, while interacting with other curious citizens of the world. That we do so to help end a horrific scam, a parasitic belief system that has been foisted upon our neighbors and our children, makes our cause true, one of brotherhood and righteousness.
That may sound over the top, but it really isn’t.
Thank you, Anthony
(and Tillsdale, Curry. Eisenbach, et al, and the hundreds of folks whose comments are so much more brilliant that I can hope for. I read your comments and I am proud!)
Michael Mann … furthering the cause of climate skepticism one tweet at a time.
Good on you and your team anthony!
Anthony,
Great blog, you, your mods, contributors do a great job. I really appreciate it and learn something new just about every time I tune in – which is just about every day at least once. Keep it up.
“Is #AnthonyWatts really the best front man the #KochBrothers can buy?”
Better, he’s the best money can’t buy. Something Mann probably has no concept of, someone doing what’s right simply because it’s what’s right.
As an attorney friend of mine likes to say, “Sue the bastard!”
Mann seems to have no compunctions about suing people and, after all, turnabout is fair play…
Too bad neither CA nor PA have criminal defamation laws. But civil is OK. Mikey can’t lie about you with impunity. IMO, which doesn’t count, you don’t qualify as a public figure, despite your great contributions to discussion of important issues. You can probably show that he has damaged not just your reputation, but your business. No doubt you’ve sought better legal counsel than my opinion, but hope you decide to go for it. Give the twit a taste of his own medicine, which proved to have deleterious side effects for him.
For the casual WUWT visitor (or troll), please note Anthony’s traffic graphs use log scales. AKA WUWT is MUCH more preferred…
Please keep up the good work.
Looking at Mann’s twitter bio, is Penn State ALSO saying Anthony Watts is on the big oil payroll?
Penn State needs to clarify it’s connection to Mann’s twitter account. Mann is speaking for himself or the University.
https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann
Michael E. Mann
Michael E. Mann
@MichaelEMann
Climate Scientist, Professor, and Director of Penn State Earth System Science Center. Author of Dire Predictions & The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
Penn State University, PA · michaelmann.net
These people have obviously NEVER heard the phrases ‘those who live in glass houses, shouldn’t throw stones’ or ‘Those who accuse others, probably are guilty of which they accuse’
Especially with the screaming about ‘big oil’. As far as I’m aware, it seems to be the CAGWers who ARE on the payroll of ‘big oil’.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Thanks to Anthony Watts! The world is a better place because of you, Anthony. Also, thanks for the perspective.
Pippen Kool says:
October 14, 2013 at 5:37 pm
“but for the record I’ve never gotten a dime from the Koch brothers”
Maybe Mann is basing his statement on your receiving funding from Heartland, and the Koch brothers funding Heartland for the explicit purpose of undermining climate research. I guess I could see how he might come to incorrect conclusions.
REPLY: Maybe, it was a one-time project, for which I only got half funded, and then the criminal formerly known as Gleick got in the middle of it. I approached them about the idea, not the other way around, and they located an independent donor for the project. For the record (and for the umpteenth time) I don’t get any regular funding from Heartland, I never have. All that has been answered on my FAQs page for quite some time: http://wattsupwiththat.com/about-wuwt/faqs/
———————————
I wonder, distinguished blog owner whose name must not be typed, if the Koch brothers actually even donated to the Heartland Institute in the year during which it supported your research, & if so, how much. In 2011 their foundation(s) gave the HI only $25,000.
I’m sure that prorating your share of whatever they did donate over all HI spending wouldn’t amount to much, if anything. Although mostly tax-payer supported against our wishes, Little Mikey has probably gotten an order of magnitude more from Big Oil than you, & directly, not just indirectly.
– – – – – – – –
Anthony,
Yep, here at WUWT we benefit from ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’, which are respectively: the good host, the bad attitude toward the ideology infecting climate science and the ugly climateers driving readers here.
But, we all know the single reason WUWT is so influential and successful for so long . . . a truly great leader . . . you. And I hope you are blushing when that is said. : )
John
I think Mann actually does think you are funded by big oil Anthony – in my (nonexpert) opinion, his mind has cracked under the pressure, and has convinced himself that he’s the good guy, that his hockey stick is sound, that his message is sincere, and that the only reason you’re getting more attention than him is because of the shadowy figures he imagines are behind your campaign.
If I’m right, he will step up his campaign of libel and try to goad you into suing him, so he can “discover” your correspondence with big oil, and the fat bank account he imagines you have.
The one impression I’ve had from reading the Climategate emails is, despite all the shonky science, they actually, sincerely, believed all along that they were right – any attempt to hide declines was to deny you ammunition, to prevent you from distracting the world from their mission to save mankind.
I know it sounds bonkers, but I think there’s a real chance that the alarmists still sincerely believe.
Since Mann packaged his insinuation as a question, I’m not sure that it is actionable. Whether or not it is, I suggest that one should not waste one’s time on legal battles over petty insults. Continuing to grow this blog is the better answer.
This is my Monday Mirthiness. Love it!
My take on legal action? Too much aggravation. Considering how many people are going to read this post, I’d say you have already exacted proper revenge on the little toad. More people will see his tweet on WUWT than will have seen it on Twitter.
Anthony-the thing that people like Mann will never understand is that in order for people to like whatever “product” you offer, YOU have to be likable too. I love this website, what I learn here, what it prompts me to investigate on my own, what it allows me to pass along to others. But I also like YOU, and the regulars here. Smart, NICE, funny, and REAL people one and all.
It must be just a tad satisfying to know you live rent free in Mann’s head without even trying! 🙂
A most interesting blog, thank you Anthony Watts.
Time on site: WUWT highest, RealClimate lowest. Perfect.
Anthony:
You forgot to mention that WUWT is powered by renewable energy (or at least your home office). You can also compare stats on how “green” the various climate sites are — I’m sure you’d trounce them in that category as well.
Please add my appreciation for your incredible dedication, persistence and hard work.
Fantastic Job Mr. Watts. Keep up the good work. Sites like these are extremely needed in the current cabal. Regards from Belgium
Anthony, you’ve easily beaten them at their own web game. Mann is foolish to say otherwise and almost espouses desperation.
to be honest, every real scientist I speak to, whether they are pro or anti global warming, just wish these people would shut up and go away. Every real scientist I know of understands that their credibility is being damaged by alarmist propaganda that has no basis in reality.
Imagine how it must be to have spent years assessing climate issues using hard science and to be convinced that there is a real signal out there that warrants some measured action. And then along comes some joker who tries to make out that we are immediately facing a 6m rise in sea level or some other such nonsense. I mean every one knows that he/she is a complete fool, but consider what it would be like to then be tarred with the same brush, even though your message is much more moderate.
Anthony, perhaps some day you will be a saint or a knight; I don’t know, but there isn’t a sufficient honorific to do justice to what you are doing. Thank you!
Don’t sue. Michael Mann will claim you are trying to silence him, he will claim to be a martyr, he will claim he hit a nerve. In short, it would be at best a Pyrrhic victory. The best thing to do is to respond with rational, calm responses. Anybody who isn’t a religious zealot for the cause will see the difference between a real scientist and a real hypocrite.
Facts are the mortal enemy of people like Michael Mann. Keep up the good work. I read this site daily because it is full of verifiable information. That alone will slay Michael Mann. Eventually. (But don’t cry for him, he won’t ever be a pauper.)
Better traffic than Grist! That is an amazing accomplishment.
One of many reasons I visit WUWT so often is the 3 – 10 new articles every day. I don’t know how Anthony does it. ‘Stamina’ seems like too mild a word. Maybe ‘mission’ is a more accurate explanation.
Someone had to do it — and Anthony stepped up to the plate.
WUWT has what alarmist blogs lack: the courage to allow comments from all sides to be published. Alarmist blogs lack that courage. They heavily censor skeptics’ comments, even altering the wording of posts [SkS has actually done that]. They routinely delete’ comments that refute their narrative. Who wants that?
Alarmist blogs have become thinly-trafficked echo chambers, populated by like-minded head-nodders. That is no fun. Spirited debate is where the action is! If a comment cannot stand the WUWT peer review process, everyone can see it. Eventually, only the truth is left.
OK, I’m so wound up, another donation is on the way! ☺
shenanigans24 says: “Wikipedia was no help”
Wankerpedia has a fatal flaw. Resident trolls there can change any entry to coincide with their mentally-deficient, misguided, misinformed, maniacal or malicious beliefs.
[Always avoid alliteration! — mod.☺]
Is Mann’s comment endorsed by his employer, Penn State University?
The university ALLOWS their page
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/about/contact.php
to link to Mann’s twitter account. Mann’s twitter page also has no disclaimer that it is only his opinion and NOT the university.
Also, did Mann post his comment from a University Computer? Is the comment a University authorized activity?
http://guru.psu.edu/policies/AD20.html
Policy AD20 COMPUTER AND NETWORK SECURITY
Policy
II. RESPONSIBILITIES RELATED TO ACCESS TO AND USE OF COMPUTER AND NETWORK RESOURCES:
System Users
f. Using accounts or network access only for the purposes for which they were authorized and only for University-related activities.
Anthony,
We should all tweet this YouTube link to Mann. It is a great one liner from the movie ‘The Outlaw Jose Wales ‘
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_4e8iAofnrw&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D_4e8iAofnrw
Apropos to Mann’s crap tweets, n’est ce pas?
Wow, funny.
John
I am happy to have contributed to the success of this site. Don’t remember how many years I have been reading here–it’s been a lot–and I have learned a lot. I don’t comment so much any more–too many people are way smarter than me. However, if you get it into your head, Anthony, to sue the little mann, I offer my services pro bono, and I am licensed in PA, too. (Having said that, as one other commenter said previously, you are probably best off just ignoring the little mann.)
Anthony, I’ve had eyes on you for a long time and you have my respect.
I also have eyes on others that I have little or no respect. Sometimes I respond.
I just keep an eye on things. Stand tall as I’m only one of many. You are a good man.
I liked this: “…dead air peppered with occasional feature rants doesn’t keep viewers coming back”
While I fully realize this idea sounds rather idiotic. But what if it’s brilliant? 🙂
Create Watts BlogSuit page for lawyers, legal aids and law students to chime in anonymously to compile the work for a lawsuit case. Maybe much of the case work would be donated greatly reducing the paid lawyer cost.
It would be just like WUWT compiling the case against AGW.
Contributors and readers could dispute, refine and add to the various suppositions etc.
Or not?
It was only a passing thought.
I’ve brought Mann’s constant Big Oil b.s.to light as well. If “Don’t Sell Your Coat” or my next book earns some real dough ten years from now when global cooling turns out to have been a better prediction than what Al Gore was peddling, I’ll be alright with that. In the meantime, unfortunately, my vow of poverty is all too real.
Ugh.. ANY site/.org/.gov entity and or employee and/ or person using emotive-led comments in ATTEMPTING to besmirch or feebly attempt in silencing one’s given right to reason have lost the discussion.
If hockey stick putz & his mostly emotive functioning lemmings (i.e. useful idiots) are using vitriol, as we sadly are familiar with when using their cherry picked, ‘smoothed’ data to fit their conclusion ( ‘Interesting’ how these AGW supporting ahem ‘scientists’ already formed a conclusion (?) initially and are then picking and choosing partisan data to support their ahem ‘findings’) and resorting to name calling and juvenile,devolving-like antics the modicum of discussion is over.
Mann’s a deliberately dishonest choad.
I’m sure you will be able to find Mann in 2035 on a where are they now show highlighting the superstar of the AGW hoax as he mumbles on about the thermageddon.
I wish all who follow WUWT will donate at least 1/2 of what they pay for their cable bill to WUWT. It will be a contribution well spent.
If the big SCAM is successful your utility bill will be much more and will not be optional. Think about it.
shenanigans24 says:
October 14, 2013 at 7:19 pm
I’m sure that in Year 39 of the Pause, Mikey, if still employed, will have all new lame excuses at the ready, although with Trenberth gone, he’ll have to invent them himself.
Anthony,
I don’t know you have the stamina & will power to keep WUWT going day after day, week after week, year after year. I haven’t had time to read all the comments on this post but I did want to add my personal thanks for all that you do ! It’s an amazing blog & I look forward to visiting it every day.
Keep up the good work & your stamina, as the battle isn’t over yet :))
I think it’s nice that the warmists like Mann are so open when it comes to telling the world that they are scared out of their minds. Now only if they were as transparent with their research…
Steve Oregon says:
October 14, 2013 at 7:07 pm
Not as crazy as it sounds. At least one law school in the DC area has its students dream up new suits to bring, just for practice, consequences of local businesses be damned. That’s why hair dressers in that area can no longer charge black customers more for work that takes longer & requires greater expense than for white, Asian, Latino or “other” clients. It’s discriminatory, even if there’s a real basis for the differences in time & cost.
Anthony, keep doin what your doin!
There are many out here that will help as we can.
Perhaps it is time to expand and get some of that Big Oil money? Heck, you are fighting government funding which is quite large in the end.
It must be quite painful for the likes of Mann to have a completely volunteer opponent,,,, and be losing.
Just Sayin, Oh the Pain ;+}
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKwwcCpa2Ag&w=420&h=315]
Anthony,
Great post, and as always great commenters, one of the reasons I like this site. After thinking about the pros and cons of suing someone like Mr. Mann and reading some of the responses to this post I think it would be better to just ignore him as he is not worth the time. I believe that actual climate science is going to do him in, his reputation is already a joke, and his ideas have been debunked by so many papers its not even funny. Even the IPCC has done him some significant damage. Anyway just my thoughts.
v/r,
David Riser
Seems like David Koch has a new “frontman” — PBS program NOVA to the tune of $10M.
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/10/stormy_weather_for_wgbh_over_conservative_david_koch
Several years ago, Neal Stephenson, the historical/technical fiction writer, penned a great essay on the complete gulf in mindset between those paid by the “prince” and those paid by the public. The essay can be found here, in answer to question #2:
http://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-responds-with-wit-and-humor
He was talking specifically about writers, comparing those who live off government and/or university grants, and those who make their way by actually selling books. He opens by recalling a literary conference where the writer sitting next to him could not fathom that his income actually derived from the sales of his books.
But I think it is relevant for fields like climate science as well. The mainstream client scientists living off government grants are ultimately concerned with keeping their paymasters happy, doing this by writing stuff that keeps those in the “prince’s” hierarchy happy. I think they are truly mystified by those who are not beholden to the princes.
Hansen has his animation domination double.
http://co2insanity.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/simpson-hansen.jpg
Mann, with a few touch-ups, could make a good court jester, I do believe.
And these ‘modifications’ would certainly be less than what he and his gang have done to the data.
Just sayin’……
Please do not sue the Mann,he is the best climate science, TM IPCC has to offer.
Based on his past work his lawyer will be able to demonstrate that the slander he spouts is based on his scientific ability.
Reading the rating backward and upside down.. the mann has precedent.
Accusing others of his own habits/short coming… same.
Selectively rewriting history to suit his needs….same
Each time he pronounces from on high, more people leave the cause.
After all even being perceived as politically correct is not enough compensation, to be seen as siding with this character.
Thanks for all you do Anthony , reminded me to donate which I just did 🙂
I would sue. An out and out lie! (multiple lies) Where is the fund for this suit? I will contribute?
Great comments in this thread from a lot of clear thinking adults.
So different from Mann’s rantings. Mikey sounds rather like a teenage boy struggling to make it through puberty.
However, I really have a hard time understanding that little cadre of loyal groupies clinging to his coattails.
Yes indeed Mr. Watts, you are number 1. I’ve been in the TV Broadcasting industry for 21 years and the rate at which WUWT presents new content is very impressive. The continual stream of fresh content is what keep the site alive. All credit to the WUWT team for an outstanding job.
Oscar winning performance.
Bravo!
While I trust the accusation to be untrue, I have to add another question.
If Watts were funded by the Koch brothers, what would make that evil??
Which humans may money not be accepted from, to fund a cause you believe in?
If Al Gore ofered me secret money to run a youth soccer program, I would accept it without hesitation, and if anyone confronted me with it, I’d simply reply “I dont like his politics, but I do like youth sports and I have faith in myself to keep those things separate.”
Blogs like WUWT and the Hockeyschtick serve a very important function. Where else can we counter the Believers?
Mann is a dime-a-dozen bully who will be remembered chiefly because he inspired a parodic video by an excellent musician (Elmer Beauregard) who lives in a trailer, a video that broke Mann’s mesmeric hold on the world. Last year I pressed that point in a fancy restaurant (just a few blocks from Tom’s Restaurant, where I last ate 40 or so years ago) just in order to annoy somebody at another table. My comic words, that stranger’s sudden grimaces. Correlation is not causation except when it is! Considering the proximities involved, I may have added to a certain glamour boy’s ill feelings. But, with apologies to Edward Dahlberg, let us laugh the Manns out of this world, so that Man (and Woman) can live in it!
OssQss, I’ve been looking for a Dr. Smith “Oh, the pain” video like that for years. Thanks!
I’m pretty sure that people such as Pippen Kool actually are aware that the only money that the Koch foundation have given to Heartland in over a decade was $25,000 that records and corroborating statements from both parties show was for the specific purpose of healthcare research and not used in heartland’s work in climate. A small but often conveniently overlooked fact that is sometimes used to attack Anthony as though he somehow received some of that money.
Gary says:
October 14, 2013 at 7:37 pm
Seems like David Koch has a new “frontman” — PBS program NOVA to the tune of $10M.
——————————————————————————-
Oh my, It is horrable stuff too! SARC< Look for yourself before you state such with inuendo?
If I were an alumnus of Penn State i would demand that the adminsitration direct Dr. Mann to apologize to you for this tweet made on the behalf of the university without the concurence by the Penn States’ administration. Potentially libelous statement as a member of the academic community should be not made on behalf of the institution without prior approval. The admininstration has a duty to remind Dr. Mann of his responsibilty. Don’t waste your time suing him. Let the Penn State aluminae and political benefactors tell the university what they should do.
Thank you, Anthony, for all your hard work. It is that hard work and your focus on actual science that has made your website number 1. It is that focus the draws some of the top players in climate science to follow your blog and often contribute, which keeps all of us coming back. Sprinkle in the histrionic drama of Michael Mann and you have quite a lot of entertainment going on as well.
We are all in your debt! Thanks again!
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm
Isn’t it weird that the only time Michael Mann makes the news is when he makes a complete ass of himself?
I’ve heard some people would rather have negative attention than no attention at all!
However, it makes no sense whatsoever!
But then, Mann’s whole career doesn’t make sense, either–he fabricates and hides and is nasty about it.
It really is sad, but he has himself to blame.
Thanks for all your hard work Anthony….I’m a non scientist but I look at your site daily and find it fascinating.Congratulations on a job well done.
One almost gets the impression that Michael E Mann thinks he would make a better front man than Anthony and is trying to get the attention of the Koch brothers to make him an offer.
Mann – what a joke! Congratulations Anthony and WUWT, always an interesting site to visit often.
Anthony –
just to make Mann’s blood boil a bit more:
15 Oct: Bloomberg: Ewa Krukowska: EU Nations Agree To Seek Softer Law to Curb Car Emissions
European Union governments agreed today to seek a revision of a draft law to curb emissions from cars, bowing to calls from Germany for more flexibility to protect the competitiveness of the domestic automobile industry…
***The EU is trying to reconcile its ambitions to lead the global fight against climate change with efforts to help the region’s economy recover from a recession…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-14/eu-nations-agree-to-seek-softer-law-to-curb-car-emissions.html
13 Oct: Bloomberg: Sally Bakewell: Clean Energy Investment Headed for Second Annual Decline
Clean-energy investment fell 14 percent in the third quarter from the prior three months as Europe curbed subsidies and cheaper U.S. natural gas lured investment…
“Governments accept that the world has a major problem with climate change but, for the moment, appear too engrossed in short-term domestic issues to take the decisive action needed,” Michael Liebreich, chief executive officer of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said in the statement…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-13/clean-energy-investment-headed-for-second-annual-decline.html
13 Oct: Bloomberg: Ehren Goossens: Electric Car Rentals Stalled in U.S. by Range Anxiety
In fact, people who drive off in electric vehicles from Enterprise Holdings Inc., the biggest U.S. auto renter, often bring them back to trade for a car that runs on gasoline….
About 140,000 plug-in EVs are on U.S. roads, short of President Barack Obama’s goal for 1 million of the cars by 2015, data from the Electric Drive Transportation Association shows…
Slow demand is the main reason the St. Louis-based company has 300 electric cars in its fleet, 40 percent below a target it set in 2010 when it ordered 500 of Nissan Motor Co.’s plug-in electric Leafs, Broughton said…
Enterprise offers Tesla Model S cars in its Exotic Car Collection fleet for about $300 to $500 a day.
That’s about 10 times the price of renting a Leaf, which Enterprise offers in Orlando, Florida, for about $55 a day, the same price as other compact or standard vehicles…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-13/electric-car-rentals-stalled-in-u-s-by-range-anxiety.html
Well done, sir! And, FWIW, here’s another indication of the “divergence” problem in “climate communications”, as I had noted in a recent post:
Seems to me that despite the best efforts of the likes of Mann, Gleick and Weaver (which until not too long ago included the brilliant “communication” strategy of blocking by default all who were not “approved” to view their “protected’ tweets) and the IPCC’s very own “official” advocacy-driven “scientists”, such as AR5 WG1 Co-Chair, Thomas Stocker, the above comparison strongly suggests that more and more people are choosing to discover for themselves where the more likely “scenarios” might be found.
And they tell some friends, who then tell some friends and so on, and so on, and so on!
I have made the comment a number of times here that you, Anthony Watts, deserve a Nobel prize. The problem is not that you don’t deserve the prize, it is that the prize doesn’t deserve you.
Hmmm … code for image worked in test comment on my blog, but not here. Try this one:
http://hro001.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/20131008-topher-vs-ipcc.jpg?w=630
Good job Anthony. It looks like you had your tail twisted. Great way to use facts to come back at them. Keep shining the light.
Anthony – there isn’t much I could add to all the plaudits you’re getting from other posters. Just try to keep going as long and as hard as you can. When the AGW house of cards self-destructs, you will surely be hailed as one of those who has played a crucial role in beating back this obscene assault on liberty, prosperity and morality – and on science. A true hero, you are.
Let’s don’t forget that the alarmies get a LOT of money from Big Oil – BP, Shell, ExxonMobil in particular. They support alarmism because they expect to make money trading carbon credits. Conversely, if the oil companies did start funding skeptic efforts they would not only help their business in the long run, they would be doing a huge public service.
I’d really like to know whether Mann himself has gotten funding from Big Oil – I think that is a distinct possibility, either directly or through Penn State. But in any case, nothing can match the man’s hypocrisy. He’s right up there with Bloody Mess, methinks.
Mann is upset because we are winning the argument on its merits and this blog is on the front lines. Thank you, Anthony, for making this possible. Don’t worry too much about a cad like Mann. He will sink himself with his ill-considered remarks. Just keep moving forward with the truth and don’t be distracted by a fool’s rant.
[snip – sorry, but that’s way over the top – Anthony]
Here. In the rainforest.
Monkeys fly in peace.
More CO2. More trees. More Monkeys.
My monthly average temperature is 84F.
Extremely comfortable.
Anthony, Good job.
Just tickled the tip jar.
My name is not Koch and I am not oily.
Just a 73 year old believer in what this site is doing.
Hey, what about starting a fund for WUWT called “KochBothers”? I’m sure many alarmists would be so desperate to find what they want to hear, they would fall over themselves into that trap.
Anyways, my sincere thanks for the good work and the stamina to take all that shit which the global warming fans sends your way.
Nay, without Anthony Watts, none of us would be meeting here! Anthony, you’ve created a very unique community, where even hard-core warmists are allowed to post and converse (although they seem to be a bit thin-skinned).
The other sites like Real Climate are just echo-chambers, with CAGW enthusiasts stroking each other, closing criticism out. They are also as boring as drying paint, while you keep things interesting with a variety of subjects tangential to climate change…electric cars, de-evolution of Pop Sci & Sci Am, etc.
Thanks, friend. I appreciate the many excellent conversations I have on this site, and look forward to more. You serve as a modern-day Thomas Paine, with much further reach than his handbills could have ever achieved. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine
If you establish a legal defense fund, let us know. Cheers, Charles the DrPH
p.s. RIP REP! Thank you, Moderators!
Pat say October 14, 2013 at 4:55 pm
I would make a joke that Mr Mann is full of crap, but he may take that as a conspiracy in that Koch owns Angelsoft toilet tissue
—-
OMG…
Do you think those emails he won’t release were printed on Angelsoft??!! Maybe there is a conspiracy here SARC/
Instead of considering legal options to deal with Mann’s libel, I suggest feeding him rumors of various false ideas, e.g. some of your support is coming from Madoff money. Judging how quickly Mann jumped to idiotic conclusions over the WUWT calendar fiasco (you’re sending him one next year, I hope), getting various tweeters to mention your latest grant from PEMEX ought to get ever more bizarre comments from Mann. When he hears you’re spraying Snomax around Penn State and his home – http://www.usustatesman.com/2.5353/fake-snow-could-cause-real-trouble-1.564197#.UlzGRhCYPa4 – we’ll be ready with the popcorn.
Mann thinks he’s in with the big CAGW Boys!
Aspen Institute: David Koch, Executive Vice President, Chemical Technology
Department:
Board of Trustees
http://www.aspeninstitute.org/people/david-koch
Aspen Institute: CityLab: Urban Solutions to Global Challenges
The Atlantic, the Aspen Institute, and Bloomberg Philanthropies Present “CityLab: Urban Solutions for Global Challenges”
Inaugural Summit to Be Held in New York City October 6-8, 2013
As previously announced, the summit will feature conversations on economic development; the environment and sustainability…
Over the course of two days, programming will feature conversations with …. Michael R. Bloomberg, AL GORE…
http://www.aspeninstitute.org/events/2013/10/06/citylab-urban-solutions-global-challenges/citylab-updates
8 Oct: Atlantic: Emma Green: CityLab: Al Gore: The Media Is ‘Frightened to Death’ of Talking About Climate Change
“Go whole hog on electrification,” Gore urged during an interview with AtlanticEditor in Chief James Bennet on Monday night at the magazine’s CityLab summit. “Put these solar panels in. Start generating renewable electricity. Deal with the heat through tree planting and green roofs. Cheap fossil energy has created an incredibly inefficient infrastructure.”
Gore painted an alarming picture of the future of ocean temperatures, hurricanes, and wind storms. “The cumulative amount of man-made global warming pollution is trapping enough extra heat each day to equal the amount of heat energy that would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima bombs going off every single day,” he said. “That’s a lot of energy.”…
For all these failings of the press and the politicians, Gore offered two solutions: Impose a carbon tax on companies and publicly shame climate change neglecters and deniers.
“We have to put a price on carbon in the marketplace, and we have to put a price on denial in the political system,” he said.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2013/10/al-gore-media-frightened-death-talking-about-climate-change/7165/
Thanks for all you hard work over the years Anthony. I’ve been a mostly a reader with a few comments here and there since your Surfacestations project got started. Great job to all contributers.
Anthony, I apologize for my attempt at a twitter-style piece of snark modeled rather loosely after Mr. Mann’s by repeating an annoying talking point. That you would censor it (even though it posed a more truthful question than his) only proves that you are the better man. Thank you.
Anthony hit it on the head about how to keep a web site, or other program going. Keep the content fresh, and keep it good.
Great job, Anthony.
BTW, I use your site for research to bolster points I am arguing on some other site. What I find valuable is not only the quality of the articles, but when the artilcle author references appropriate studies. I don’t hesitate to link WUWT, and like it when I get the double-shot load of the author’s explanation, plus acadamic references.
Every now and then, I feel like the WordPress search function is not as good as doing an off site Google search to find and article on WUWT.
Yours is still the best site on the web.
I know for a Mann-fact that Alexa is owned by big-oil, big-pharma, and big-bird.
Stick it to the Mann!
Ill contribute just to shut up Mann.
Pass Go and collect.
Anthony,
Sue the twit. The time has come for many of us to do that, means permitting.
Yes Wayne Delbeke, a good fire makes the evening.
I no longer feel guilty in the least of burning lots and lots of wood deforesting the Earth now that even natural gas has been demonized by the environmentalist lot. The message is clear… burn the wood of the Earth… no longer that smelly natural gas that is given off from its bowels.
/sarc
@Joe J — your post at 9:51pm shows you are pretty cool, too.
Just wanted to say….
I am not a scientist. And every time I visit, I learn something. The discussions may go over my head…but even the most esoteric gets explained eventually in the comments.
Let’s just say the opposite happens when I visited the AGW sites. No explanations. Nothing but…”Because we say so and you’re an idiot for doubting us.”
From a guy just trying to learn about his world….thanks to you and to all your great commenters.
WUWT is a great resource for the civilized world. Please continue to expend your energy and resources on having the best science blog in the world. The community that has been built here is a treasure. It gives new meaning to the phrase “peer reviewed”.
Congratulations on your great ratings. The driving force behind the great ratings is great content and community.
Anthony, as I am sure you know, you have many, many fans in the UK who are grateful not only for the scientific content of your amazing blog but also for the impartial and open-handed manner in which it is presented.
The superb contributions from yourself, Bob Tisdale, the inimitable Willis and many others keep us glued to the screen but it is the TONE of the blog that marks it out as something really special, something that your visitors have taken to their hearts. This is what gets under the skin of Dr. Mann and his ilk – that and the fact that they have comprehensively lost the CAGW argument.
You can’t fake good science and you can’t go out and buy honesty, integrity and transparency. Enjoy this round of applause from the UK, Anthony – you have more than earned it.
I would suggest that the better lawsuit strategy is not to sue offensive individuals like Mann, but to support counter-suits by any entity that is being sued by rabid AGW proponents. Filing amicus curiae briefs may at least get the attention of some jurists who are presently brainwashed by the “settled science” doctrine that some federal courts have proclaimed.
Anthony, WUWT has made all of the difference in the world in this debate.
H/T to all involved.
Misanthrope Mann’s centre of ethical equilibrium seems to have shifted dramatically from “bad” to “worse”. He’s more unbalanced than ever before. I don’t believe in mocking the afflicted but for him I’ll make an exception because he so richly deserves it.
the problem with Mann he will not take is medication.
just to irritate Mann:
Dec 2012: CapitalNewYork: Dana Rubinstein: Introduced by Al Gore, Bloomberg advocates anti-storm infrastructure, but not sea walls
Former vice president Al Gore, a surprise guest, introduced Bloomberg’s speech, and said that Hurricane Sandy was undoubtedly a result of human-induced climate change.
“Dirty energy causes dirty weather and we have to come to our senses and do someting about it,” he said, adding, “What will it take for the national government to wake up, as this mayor has been telling us to do?”
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2012/12/6785074/introduced-al-gore-bloomberg-advocates-anti-storm-infrastructure-no
3 Oct: Washington Post Opinion: We need climate-change risk assessment
By Michael Bloomberg, Hank Paulson and Tom Steyer
That’s why the three of us have joined together to lead a new effort designed to do just that. Our Risky Business initiative (www.riskybusiness.org) will look across the U.S. economy and assess the potential impacts of climate change by region and by sector. Our analysis, when complete, will arm decision-makers with the information they need to determine how much climate risk they are comfortable taking on…
We already know that extreme weather events cost a lot of money. In recent years, these costs have added up after such events as Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina; the wildfiresand epic floodsin Colorado; the die-off of pine trees across the Rocky Mountains; devastating, historic floods across the Midwest; deepening drought in New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma; record heat waves across Alaska and the Northeast; and the slow but intractable death of the coral reefs in the Gulf of Mexico.
While it is difficult to attribute any single weather event to climate change, world climate scientists agree that climate change makes these types of events both more likely to occur and more catastrophic in scope. Even under the best-case climate scenarios, we are likely to experience more extreme weather, more droughts and heat waves, more destructive storms and floods…
We believe the Risky Business initiative will bring a critical missing piece to national conversations about climate change and help business leaders, elected officials and others make smart, well-informed, financially responsible decisions. Ignoring the potential costs could be catastrophic. That is a risk we cannot afford to take.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-10-03/opinions/42665103_1_climate-change-tom-steyer-new-mexico
This attack includes so many names Michael Mann could substitute for the tired old Koch Bros bogeymen. Disclosure: I’m a CAGW sceptic who is not a fracking fan!
16 Sept: DesmogBlog: Steve Horn: Frackademia: The People & Money Behind the EDF Methane Emissions Study
Others listed as key funders include – but are not limited to – Fiona and Stanley Druckenmiller, the Robertson Foundation and Tom Steyer. All have key connections to fracking and pro-industry stances that tell an important tale about the study and its findings…
Steyer, Paulson, Bloomberg: Backing Fracking
Steyer, Bloomberg, Paulson, (Robert) Rubin and former U.S. Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan George Shultz have reunited to form a climate change initiative whose details will be revealed in October, according to The New Yorker…
Via his TomKat Trust named after him and his wife Kat Taylor, Steyer is also a major funder of the ClimateWorks Foundation.
ClimateWorks got off the ground in 2007 by authoring a key report titled, “Design to Win: Philanthropy’s Role in the Fight Against Global Warming.” Among other things, the report calls for converting coal-fired power plants to gas-fired power plants, a de facto endorsement of the then forthcoming U.S. fracking boom.
Will the Steyer, Bloomberg, Paulson and Rubin climate initiative promote fracking as a “bridge fuel”? Time will tell: October’s just a few weeks away…
http://desmogblog.com/2013/09/16/frackademia-people-money-behind-edf-fracking-methane-emissions-study
l
The gift of knowledge I have received here make me eternally grateful Anthony.
Perhaps some further exposition on meteorology, to explain how the weather works in its basic and broader forms could be useful in the future. Not that you haven’t in the past but understanding the weather gives great insight as to the climate in various regions.
Mr Watts ..they cast aspersions and call you names… but they won’t debate will they? Political science not SCIENCE.
There was a post by Mann insinuating that Watts was funded by Heartland and that some investigative journalist should unearth the dirt. It was posted a bout a month before the Glieck affair. I may have been what prompted Glieck to act.
Anthony
Having been involved in litigation with crooks I wouldn’t have a bar of tangling with Mann and his ilk in court. The courts are not courts of justice but it it is a big tag team between lawyers and who can afford to score the most points wins; invariably the one with the most money. Right has nothing to do with these games: you can still be right but be ruined by the costs which is frequently the opponent’s objective which may not be obvious to a novice litigant.
Best to give the malignment by Mann as much public airing as possible. You have to prove nothing the onus is on him. He cannot ruin your career or reputation by his nasty untruths: He has already proved himself globally to be of dubious honesty, at least intellectually, by his hockey stick manipulations.
He deserves public scorn and I am sensing the death throes of the warmists and alarmists. Don’t get taken down by their wild flailing about in those death throes. Such people will not go easily and we need to stick together: honesty and power seeking are unhappy bedfellows.
Regards,
Kevin O’Brien NZ
At last! A 21st century method to see which is the truth: “climate science” or “real climate science”. Measure the traffic on websites. Who says you can’t take a vote to settle the science?
Though us in the Village knew the answer anyway. Sir Christopher of Belchley told us years ago that the science IS settled:
Come on! Alexa are a Koch Brother strong hold. They do whatever big oil tells them! [/sarc]
But seriously, how much does Mann earn out of his Climate position? Not that I begrudge him it, but if the pot doth scream. Let’s not even mention Al Gore the multi-hundred-billionaire with direct business interests in Climate related thing-a-me-jiggs.
Try about 8mins 10secs in
Mr. Watts, I first want to thank you for the mammoth effort you have put forth to expose the AGW movement for what it is. I said something similar to Steve McIntyre the Christmas after Climategate broke, but truly the pushback against AGW alarmism, of which you are a principal player, has altered the course of human history to come. I know you and Steve and Ross are too humble to elevate yourselves to such positions in shaping humanity’s future, but given what was to be our path I feel this is no exaggeration. I speak as though we have won this war but I do realize we have a long way to go. I am very optimistic though that victory will be ours and Liberty will prevail. Again, I don’t believe I exaggerate when I say that this is one of the most important struggles facing humanity since AGW mitigation was a major cornerstone of the statist blueprint.
I actually have Al Gore to thank for introducing me to WUWT and AGW skepticism in general. My history with Big Al goes back to the 1992 presidential campaign and the broken promises made to East Liverpool, Ohio in regards to the proposed toxic waste incinerator that has since then been in operation (located very close to where my wife—then girlfriend— grew up). We had considered ourselves environmentalists for years at that point and were pissed off that Gore and Clinton ignored their pledge to Ohio. Strike one.
Gore was on my you-know-what list from that point on, but it wasn’t until he ran for president in 2000 that those feelings rose sharply to the surface again. Ralph Nader highlighted East Liverpool and many other instances of Gore’s environmental hypocrisy that I had been unaware of like the zinc mining contamination of the Caney Fork or the opening up of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska for drilling while simultaneously campaigning against the same in neighboring ANWR. Strike two.
And then in 2006 there was AIT. Strike three and the rest is history. I had never questioned AGW until Gore became its poster boy. And I had never heard of Steve McIntyre or WUWT. Knowing Gore’s lame record though I immediately questioned the little I did know about the science behind AGW. It didn’t take me long to find you guys and discover the unadvertised little world of AGW skepticism. My life has not been the same since in a good way. Thank you again for helping to open my eyes and the eyes of so many others. Keep up the good fight. No less than the future of our children depends upon it.
Incidentally, my first child, like AIT and WUWT, was also born in 2006. It is a ridiculous understatement to say that having your first child is life-altering, but the experience is equally mind-altering. The future instantly took on a different meaning for me. Even love became something different. There is still some areas of haze and always will be, but I see more clearly now in many ways than ever before. The scope of my awakening during that short period of my life was epiphanic. Thank you for being a part of that and for helping to bring me clarity about AGW when all there had been before was blind adherence.
Sorry for the personal diatribe. Thinking back to how this journey began for me made me a bit nostalgic for my “early” days. I visit WUWT every day and regularly visit about a dozen AGW-related sites. But I always visit here first and use your blog roll to make my rounds. Here’s to many years to come!
Finally, the subject at hand. I know many here advise you to turn the other cheek, but in my opinion you should absolutely make Mann pay for his libel, or at the least force a public recantation and apology. You know he has done it and would do so again. The stakes are too high. Turning the other cheek is no longer an option. Fight fire with fire. Truth, justice, fairness, accuracy and accountability. It’s the American way. Give ’em hell Anthony!
I have not yet begun to fight!
Oops: “It may have been what prompted Glieck to act.”
I think Watts has cause to make that demand himself. I think forcing Mann to publicly retract that claim would do a lot of good for our cause, because so many alarmists believe the smear. The correct story, on WUWT’s FAQ, has cut no ice with them.
Aphan says:
October 14, 2013 at 6:41 pm
“It must be just a tad satisfying to know you live rent free in Mann’s head without even trying! :)”
Aphan that really tickled my Australian offbeat sense of humour, an image of AW living rent free in Michael Mann’s head!!! Now that indelible image will really send the Mann off the deep end. It’s also a real cool line for another musical production about the Mann and his saga – bring it on! with a nice cartoon from Josh!!
Almost a Christmas jolly jingle!!
Love it!!
Seeing the rate at which comments are pilling in it is obvious that there are far too many people with far too much time on their hands and they need to be found something worthwhile to do, rather than reading all this propaganda.
Enough of the silliness KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK ANTHONY and all you FLYING MONKEYS.
I have learnt so much not just science but about human nature and behavior and you are a gem of the first waters as my mum says. Another of her’s is “I’m not as green as I am cabbage looking” which I think comes in very handy when looking at “green” issues.
James Bull
Wattsupwiththat = Foxnews
RealClimate.org = MSNBC
SkepticalScience = CNN
Foxnews beats them all the time.
Anthony,
I wonder, given the gaping chasm between your audience figures and the likes of SkS/RC, how much of their measly traffic is actually generated from links within postings on your site?
Keep up the great work, am happy to contribute to a fund if required.
Cheers
Mark
I would like to know how much time Mann spends being an a*****. Does he practice that skill or was he born that way?
Louis-Ferdinand Céline, the French novelist and essayist, said:
“You have to have digged deep into yourself to tell such basenesses”
This is probably the case of Mann et al.
Anthony, don’t worry and continue the good work!
Here in Germany I’m surrounded by little followers of whatever the MSM tells them. The MSM hands them a little scandal and tells them its the latest greatest thing, they believe it. The MSM doesn’t report at all about something important and they don’t know that it exists. And German policies are still 100% warmist.
Yet none of these little believers in the populace can even identify Schellnhuber or Rahmstorff. I asked.
The Global Warming Lie actually doesn’t need a grist or realclimate or SKS. They operate nearly entirely via the dummy box and via the AP and Reuters pseudo-news snippets that are then plastered all over the headlines of each single one of our Pravda-equivalents.
“WUWT is about 8 times more popular in the USA than “Skeptical Science” (SkS), and about 15 times more popular than Real Climate (RC).”
That’s quite a consensus you have going, Anthony. Too bad warmists don’t respect consensus when it is earned. It has to be faked to get their admiration.
Well done to you and all your contributers.
The only time I visit Skeptical Skience, Real Climate or any of the other such sites is on a link from a site like yours. I wonder how many of the other hits these warmist sites are the same?
Could Mann behave any less like a scientist? Just keep playing them wih a straight bat Anthony – clearly you are hitting the mark.
I hope you sue the pants off him Anthony!
Thanks for the site and work Mr Watts I have read longer and learned more here then on nearly any other site on the net! this place along with the few other non big anything funded places who have committed nothing more then the heinous crime of asking questions are our best defence against the heaters and their billions in big everything funds !
Oh and I always felt that taking the moral high ground was a good route, but in a exchange with the Mr Mann everything above the planets core is the moral high ground !
What I can tell you here in Canada from the AGW groupies, Watts up With That is the most hated site on this planet, and others spread out over the vast Empire. You must be doing something right to mess with the true believers.
Classic. You know you have stuck a fraudulent and corrupt nerve when you receive comments laced with vitriol like this. More power to your bow Anthony!
Anthony you didn’t add your biggest nemesis with a rank below SkS globally at around 75000 and a local rank in Oz nipping at your heels at 2500
http://joannenova.com.au – Jo Nova’s site
Would love to have seen Jo in that comparison.
Given Jo has a .au domain I’d have to say she’s doing rather brilliantly at rank 2500 odd eclipsing SkS at a mere rank of 16000
I’m amazed at the Koch Brothers. Is there anything they can’t do? On one website I stumbled onto, someone was blaming the Koch Brothers for hiring myriads of hackers to attack the Obamacare exchanges just to make Obama look bad. Who needs the boogieman to frighten children when you have the Koch Brothers? I’d be surprised if Mikey Mann doesn’t check under his bed each night to make sure there are no Koch Brothers hiding under there.
Just imagine what it’s going to be like when not being able to prove in even one single experiment that CO2 ever heated ANYTHING is brought up in court.
There’s even a picture on the internet of some CO2 in a clear box and an infrared laser being fired into the box.
The more CO2 is put into the box, the less infrared light gets to the other side of the box until all the light’s blocked, completely.
This is precisely the case Magic Gassers have in trying to float their baloney. There’s a very simple situation where half the atmosphere’s being irradiated with a tremendous amount of infrared light;
the atmosphere blocks about 40% of all the sun’s energy from getting to earth. The Sunlight never stops hitting one half the earth/atmosphere complex,
the other half, never stops trying to give off a VASTLY smaller amount of infrared through the same CO2.
Read these words and ask yourself who in science got drunk and forgot the difference between
more
and
less.
As long as the atmosphere is blocking, more sunlight in,
than it’s blocking, earthlight getting out,
the atmosphere is a coolant.
For those of you just arriving from some Magic Gas belief site, you need to sit down and have a cup of coffee and think about what you just got reminded of.
The atmosphere can’t heat the earth, the atmosphere/earth complex constitute two masses, being illuminated by one energy source.
Since the earth is heated many times more efficiently than the atmosphere, a similar energy load is forced to be spread through two separate entities which are mechanically tied together through physical contact; through the evaporative process of water as well.
When you are heating a black marble with a light, and then attach a second mass to that marble the light can’t heat,
watch carefully climate clowns, the temperature of the heated mass must lower as the energy load distributes itself through a larger mass.
You can’t “heat” a rock by dropping it then spinning it a thousand miles per hour in a frigid, fluid, gas bath (nitrogen and oxygen) which has a 1% shot of phase change refrigerant (water) running 24/7/365.25 convective refrigeration cycle.
Water changes phases and refrigerates the lower atmosphere. Go read on a Magic Gas site what they say about the above, absolutely simple facts.
When a Magic Gasser tells you that you don’t understand,
start rolling out the hilarious observations that reveal his luddite ways.
Ask your magic gasser if he thinks the oceanic basins being full of frigid liquid water, and ice, mean the atmosphere’s gases – water’s one of these, it’s just that it’s so cold that much water has condensed out and covers the planet- are heating the earth as the liquid reservoir of atmospheric phase change refrigerant keeps a constant temp of about 4 or whatever degrees, while the earth itself has a temperature many times higher.
Remind your magic gas believing luddite associate that you can’t be simultaneously blocking that enormous stream of energy in, from the sun, 24/7/365.25 and also blocking that tiny stream out,
and call that a warming. That simply rules out the Magic Gasser from speaking the truth – EVER – right there.
The picture the magic gassers put up themselves for years is absolutely clear: the more CO2 they add to the box, the less infrared light gets by the box to the wall on the other side.
N.A.S.A. admits because it can’t keep from being caught that CO2 is the upper atmosphere’s main coolant.
Water’s well known to be the lower atmosphere’s main coolant, and when that 40% of sunlight’s being blocked every second of time that’s ever existed,
that leaves nothing but more cooling if you add more CO2 because if CO2 is blocking the strong sunlight stream in the atmosphere, you know as well as every Magic Gasser you ever ridicule that it has to be blocking it from getting in, in the lower atmosphere.
So again, tell Magic Gas belief system anti science luddites, that when they show you a picture of more CO2 letting MORE infrared light in from the HIGH energy stream,
that will be some warming.
Till then it’s just a matter of chasing that Magic Gasser around until he starts to curse and hate you for reminding everyone publicly that every word he says is a lie.
What ever happened about that law suit Mann took out against the person who described him as ‘the Jerry Sandusky of climate science’?
WUWT was for me a real eye-opener, after years of mispaced trust in the IPCC. The decent style and lack of mud-slinging conributes greatly to the deserved position of this site.
If it makes you feel better , Mann is a arse to everyone. I would bet that many on even his own side cannot stand him
Sorry for my sloppy proofreading; I know that the correct words are “misplaced” and “contributes”.
This guy can communicate
Anthony, I have to put in a plug for Australia’s JoNova’s skeptical blog .
This might have been mentioned further up the comments but currently Jo’s blog [ http://joannenova.com.au/ ], a one woman, entirely self and donation funded home based climate blog, no very high priced fancy university powered computer and internet systems available for Jo as per Skeptical Science enjoys.
Despite her undoubted parsimonious financial handicaps compared to the lavishness of SkS’s resources Jo’s site is currently running an Alexa Global Ranking of 75,700,
Skeptical Science is currently running at an Alexa global ranking of 77,202.
SkS despite all their self promotion and endless BS and a deep and very dubious source of funding is running behind Jo’s blog site by some 1500 places in the Alexa global rankings.
Jo also has a lower bounce rate ie; one page views, and a longer “daily time on site” per view than SkS
I have checked Alexa a number of times in recent months to ascertain the global rankings of a number of climate blogs,
It seems that JoNova has led and continues to lead SkS by a relatively constant margin for quite some time both past and present in the global rankings
Which I think says a great deal about Jo’s integrity and the status and respect Jo and her blog is held in.
And also says a great deal about the disintegrating state of the fanatical climate alarmist cause as promoted by Skeptical Science.
I have found this blog to be the best example on the net of applied scepticism (not cynicism) as well as an appreciation of nature and the search for truth. The word ‘integrity’ comes to mind. My compliments and (at the risk of irritating mr Shatner) – Live long and prosper!
The next time a Magic Gas Belief preacher starts acting like he proved something, tell him to give you his, personal explanation for the reason the infrared astronomy field hasn’t picked up the fanfare by revealing how CO2 and back radiation are linked to each other, this being about CO2 trapping infrared light.
Because from the year about … oh 1996 to the year I think, 2010, N.O.A.A. themselves, –
remember this is their story, not real science’s –
N.O.A.A. ITSELF CHECKED their Magic Gas Backerdisms story.
Guess what?
After count ’em fourteen years, and three quarter of a million checks by infrared sensors at ground zero of the Magic Gas religion, the U.S. Great Plains –
N.O.A.A. discovered that after they and everybody interested in posing as an intellectually curious human swore they could see the Magic Backerdisms,
there was less infrared energy in the atmosphere than when they started.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI4210.1?journalCode=clim
Darn it, they hate it when the truth comes like that: evidence of light versus darkness.
Magic Gassers tell you there is a giant light on in the sky, too big not to believe in,
too tiny for an infared sensor designed to detect.
Mmm Hmm.
Those of you who are new to the science reading field, I call on you to ask somebody who believes in Magic Gas to explain themselves not in your words, but theirs, every time you can catch one who won’t run.
There are loads of hilarious ways these luddites have humiliated the very concept of higher education for nearly twenty years, and they want to teach your kids,
that when you submerge a warm rock into a refrigerated frigid fluid bath,
that rock’s “probably” being warmed by that bath.
Watch:
this is the world Magic Gas Belief preachers want you to live in: your kid comes home with a test. He says to you “Here mom what’s wrong here?
The test question’s this:
Question: You have illuminated a solid, spherical object with a light. The temperature of the spherical object in a partial vacuum you have established around it, is recorded.
You now immerse and spin the sphere, in a frigid, fluid, gas bath.
The sphere “probably”
(A) warmed
(B) cooled.
—–
You note the teacher marked the answer B as wrong.
The correct answer, he says to your child, is A. Immersing the warm sphere in the frigid fluid gas bath, warmed the sphere, says he to you and your son/daughter.
Lying to your child, to his/her face, and telling her she is a failure for not getting that one “correct” according to the “concensus” of hicks who can’t tell you the difference between more or less, hot or cold, there or not.
The next question is built upon the first question:
Question: In the first example the temperature of the sphere changed when immersed and spun in a frigid, gas bath.
After addition of the frigid, gas bath, an additional 1% doping of the mixture, with phase change refrigerant is achieved by adding water which evaporates from the surface of the sphere cooling it; rising, releasing heat to condense again in a pressure differential driven, convective refrigeration cycle. The additional heat removal by the refrigeration system will probably
(A) warm
(B) cool
the sphere.
——
Once again you notice your son has marked B but the teacher marked it wrong and so,
since your son/daughter missed those two questions, guess what their graded did?
Did their grade go
(down)
or
(up)
?
You and I both know from this example that simply allowing a Magic Gasser to tout his message that he’s there to inform you of light,
is simply wrong.
He is representing himself as a messenger of light, where in fact – N.O.A.A. checked – there’s darkness.
Darkness,
and more
darkness
which is why every time you see Magic Gais Pseudo-Science you see strange people representing themselves as bringing you science, light, and truth –
but every time you check what they tell you there’s darkness, superstition, lies, and half truths to cover the full lies.
Don’t let Magic Gas belief overthrow science in the Western world.
Challenge darkness presenting itself as a light wherever you find it or they’ll have your child in school telling you
dark is light (we already see N.O.A.A. checked their own story and it’s a lie)
warm is cold – we already saw how that works
right is wrong – telling the truth to millions is high treason to these people.
Do not fail to overthrow Magic Gas Belief-based pseudo science or the world will be worse damaged than it already is.
S.R.V.
Ps; When i look at Real Climate’s current Alexa global rankings of 142,212 and the viewer interaction data, JoNova is slaughtering them.
Real Climate was a very big fish indeed in climate alarmism only half a decade ago.
But as that old saying goes; A fish will start rotting from the head first.
jon shively at October 14, 2013 at 8:17 pm:
I’m with Jon Shively on this. In all the comments, I figure it’s the best piece of advice out there – and it would have the added benefit of putting Penn State on warning.
The age old question of, “Where’s the beef?!” has finally been solved:
http://climatecrock.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/stefmikkerri.jpg
Too many Whoppers, literally and figuratively.
In an semi-related Fox News story, I heard the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, the makers of Viagra®, approached Mann to help sponsor their new, “hide the decline”, ad campaign.
I don’t think a libel case has a leg to stand on, Anthony.
Remember, this whole enterprise started out as a whitewash.
Anthony,Thanks for all the great work you do and for having the persistence to keep it going day after day after day!
It looks to me as if you have the Warmistas all on the ropes. We are all waiting to hear the final Bell.
ROM:
In your post at October 15, 2013 at 2:07 am you say
Yes, and we have WUWT’s own Willis Eschenbach to thank for initiating the collapse of RC as an effective disinformation propaganda organ.
RC was promoted as being “real climate scientists reporting real climate science on the web”. And this promotion was accepted by governments and journalists as well as ‘true believers’ in AGW. Then Eschenbach published his peer reviewed paper in Energy&Environment (E&E) which exposed the blatant misrepresentation of Svaalbard temperature changes, and this induced governments and journalists to question the nature of RC and its claims (they had followed E&E since McIntyre and MacKittrick first ‘broke Mann’s hockey stick’ with their E&E papers). The media stopped their ‘copy and paste’ articles from RC and government agencies ceased citing RC so publicity for RC almost stopped. Only the ‘true believers’ now visit that site because others soon learn of its lack of balance.
Meanwhile WUWT traffic has grown despite lack of publicity from journalists. This has happened because ‘word of mouth’ informs people that WUWT exists and the curious who visit WUWT discover it enables debates with some AGW ‘true believers’ who also visit. So, the truly curious tend to stay and thus WUWT traffic grows.
This success of WUWT results from the nature of WUWT which is defined and managed by its owner and is enforced by its excellent moderat0rs.
Richard
expect more mannic mikey rants anthony.people of his mindset can never admit they were wrong. when the cAGW scare finally ends,i expect him to go into full meltdown.
to use a uk euphemism,i am skint,but if there is requirement for a legal fund,i will make a contribution.
i have no idea where your stamina comes from,please take care of your self,it may sound over dramatic,but the world really needs people like you at the moment. you receive more admiration and respect ,not only for your work,but your honesty,integrity and willingness to engage with anyone,than mann could ever hope to achieve .last time i looked there was no documented evidence of fraud on your part,and no one taking you to court as a result of failure to comply with a legitimate FOIA request.
you are an honest and sincere man,and THAT is what is reflected in the web traffic. as others have mentioned,many of the warmist sites actually have you to thank for the minimal amount of traffic they actually do receive, many skeptics use them to reinforce the belief that the warmists practise political science,and to get a laugh from time to time.
richardscourtney says:
October 15, 2013 at 2:54 am
“and this induced governments and journalists to question the nature of RC and its claims (they had followed E&E since McIntyre and MacKittrick first ‘broke Mann’s hockey stick’ with their E&E papers). ”
I don’t believe that. Gavin Schmidt and Stefan Rahmstorff, two important RC figures, are the pseudoscientists that the regimes installed to create the scare they needed. RC is a government front. Governments didn’t need to read E&E to know that they were a propaganda organization. They were designed to be one.
It is more likely that the AP & Reuters “journalists” just got the order to change their tactics, to not expose vulnerabilities by using flakey RC material.
DirkH:
re your post at October 15, 2013 at 3:41 am.
Believe whatever you want, but prior to Eschenbach’s paper nobody in the media and no government was saying the “RC material” was “flakey”.
If – as you say – the governments established RC to provide “flakey material” why would they stop using and promoting that material soon after Eschenbach published evidence which showed it was “flakey” unless it was because Eschenbach’s publication had ‘let the cat out of the bag’?
Who are you claiming gave “AP & Reuters” the “order” and why if it was not that Eschenbach’s publication had ‘let the cat out of the bag’?
Richard
Upon reading this thread, I realized I HAD to immediately make a $30 donation, so that I could now proclaim myself a mini-Koch brother. bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!
Fantastic work, Anthony! Your results reflect your effort and insights!
P.S. no one says what’s really wrong with RealClimate (and some other pro-agw blogs), and this is that it is just a LOUSY site! It is NOT visually appealing, it is not “entertaining to read”, the comments are all lets-pat-ourselves-on-the-back-and-use-a-lot-of-techno-talk-doing-it, and it is updated sporadically. Content aside, it’s just a rotten, boring blog. They should take some lessons from this place, but of course they’re too arrogant to even acknowledge the need.
Anthony, you’re just showing off, shame on you!
You already have the pre-eminent position in the only court that matters in the long term – the court of human opinion. I’d say use your time to build on that, rather than involving the legal profession. It’s a massive time suck, time that won’t be spent here, where you can have way more influence than any court decision can have. There’s only one of you, after all. Keep doing what you do best.
Michael Mann is an unrecoverable narcissist, he feeds on getting a reaction from people. Starve him of that, and the only way he can go is more extreme, until eventually only his most ardent supporters will follow him. It might be the slow way, but it’s the only way that’s going to permanently rid us of his rubbish. Thank you for doing what you do.
Great to read on climate change accurately, great tips on Alexa premium account. Well done.
As a long-time Heartland supporter I wanted to clear up a few misstatements. One, Koch never made a contribution for climate facts, the contribution was directed for a Health Care initiative. In addition to the Environment and Climate facts Heartland has two other major initiatives on its shoestring budget: consumer driven health care and educational choice. Also, Heartland never tried to debunk the harms for cigarette smoking, their arguement was that second-hand smoke (i.e. getting a whiff of smoke in a restaurant) was not as harmful as smoking 1-2 packs a day, the arguement used in banning public smoking in Illinois.
@Ossqss
That is an amazing video. Should be required watching in every high school. A breath of fresh air, and a great antidote to the rubbish we’re barraged with from the climate “scientists”
Sue for every cent he’s got..!
Anthony Watts says:
October 14, 2013 at 5:06 pm
Thanks for the reply. People have all sorts of reasons for dropping into or out of a conversation, and of course some of the more prominent commenters have continued long term. I wouldn’t encourage you to change your format.
richardscourtney says:
October 15, 2013 at 3:57 am
“Who are you claiming gave “AP & Reuters” the “order” and why if it was not that Eschenbach’s publication had ‘let the cat out of the bag’?”
As for Thomson Reuters: These days Arch-globalist Pascal Lamy is on the Board of trustees. He replaced Crispin Tickell (whom you know well).
Did you think these agencies were independent?
As for other media, just gather which editors of which newspapers attend the Bilderberg meeting; not to report about it, of course, but to get their orders.
Europe, as a slave continent of the American Empire, is very well controlled.
I wonder whether Dr. Michael Mann has Tweeted about the following organisations and individuals? “Do as I say, and not as I do.” LOL.
Furthermore………..
Dana Nuccitelli – Guardian environmental contributor & works for Tetra Tech oil and gas services company.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/22/dana-nuccitellis-vested-interest-oil-and-gas/
Tetra Tech Expands Services to Shale Oil Market with Rooney Engineering Acquisition
PASADENA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jun. 6, 2012– Tetra Tech, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEK) announced today that it has acquired Rooney Engineering, Inc. (REI), an oil and gas pipeline planning and engineering firm based in Colorado.
http://www.tetratech.com/press-releases/tetra-tech-expands-services-to-shale-oil-market-with-rooney-engineering-acquisition.html
****************************
On 20 April 2002 Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri was elected Chairman of the IPCC.
In 2005 Pachauri set up a residual oil extraction technology company called Glorioil while still head of the IPCC. Glorioil advised and gave technical assistance to big oil companies on extracting residual oil from fields which would otherwise have been abandoned. Pachauri was one of its advisors too.
Glorioil (now Glori Energy based in Houston, Texas)
Great blog, great energy, keep up the good work.
I have run a model on the increase in predicted traffic over the coming years to the various websites you have mentioned. I am 95% certain, that the Warmists’ blogs are going to overtake your traffic within the next century. There maybe a pause, or temporary reduction in their traffic at the moment but that can be explained by ‘o’shane he tup take’. When the traffic returns, it will do so with great vengeance and ferocity.
Surely my model must be right? I’m very very confident and the fact it does not match observations is surely irrelevant. It’s the new scientific method.
Mann’s latest tweets
Michael E. Mann @MichaelEMann 6m
Via The @Guardian: #AnthonyWatts “*acknowledged* [Koch-funded] Heartland was helping him with $90,000”: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/15/leak-exposes-heartland-institute-climate … #PatheticHack
5:36 AM – 15 Oct 13
Michael E. Mann @MichaelEMann 10m
#KochBrothers -> HeartlandInstitute (http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/koch_brothers_donated_big_to_alec_heartland_institute/ …)
HeartlandInst -> #AnthonyWatts 88K (http://www.desmogblog.com/anthony-watts )
#DenierForHire
5:32 AM – 15 Oct 13
Stay strong, Anthony. Thanks for all you do.
Here is Dr. Rendrand K. Pachauri sitting as one of the advisors of Glorioil. Courtesy of the WayBack Machine.
http://web.archive.org/web/20070125222652/http://www.glorioil.com/people.htm
Here is GloriOil’s introduction page back in 2007.
Even Warmists are beginning to see the light.
There is one problem with WUWT: It is as addicting as the computer games my children used to play (and some still do). I am spending too much time reading the blogs and the commentary and that goes at the expense of reading some good novels. Also my garden needs some upkeep which is am inclined to neglect.
Ad hominem logical fallacies continue to unimpress.
Could Mann do with anger management? cf Ephesians 4:26
Otherwise he reaps the consequences – Revelation 18:2
¿Pursued by paid paladins of the fossil fuel industry is he?
Michael Mann manufactured that mythological martyr meme. And did an amateur job of it. Pitiable.
Instead of wasting funds on initiating lawsuits he really should hire some celebrated Hollywood screenwriters to manufacture a professionally crafted martyr myth. Or he should at least read up on Joseph Campbell ‘s work on the mono-myth.
John
i’m afraid it’s par for the course, Mr Watts.
I’ve been accused of taking money from big tobacco once, when the truth is that I worked in cancer research for 10 years!!
There is clearly a ‘party line’ that if you say certain things to certain people that you ‘are in the pay of big oil, big tobacco or big something else’.
Sue him to hell and back.
Why don’t you suggest he spend his incarceration in the Sahara desert?
As that’s going to get unbelievably hot, he’ll be petrified.
You never know, if it gets cooler, maybe he’ll repent??!!
Over on NRO I once debated a young alarmist. When I posted a link to WUWT, he declared that Anthony was to be ignored because he was just a TV meterologist.
A few hours later, as proof of the “consensus”, he posted an article that he found in the journal of the IEEE.
Let’s see, meterologists know nothing about science, but electrical engineers do?
Ooh… Looks like Mikey didn’t like his little junket to Iceland being criticized.
Aren’t the Koch brothers private citizens? If they are, it’s nobody’s business what they do w/their money. Same w/private companies like Exxon, Mobil, etc, etc, etc.
Citizens should obviously be concerned w/what their taxpayer money is used for, not private money. This is so basic….
“The cost to Germans of subsidizing renewable energy is set to rise nearly 20 percent next year — highlighting a problem for the government as it manages the country’s exit from nuclear power.”
I wonder what Mann has to say to that?
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/germany-sees-sharp-rise-energy-subsidy-costs-20572309
As the old saying goes Anthony, “if you’re taking this much flak you must be getting very close to the target”.
Keep it up sir, and sue his trousers off!
Mann sure loves his hashtags, doesn’t he? In the immortal words of ?uestlove, “#shutthef***up!”
The fraudsters don’t last that long in historical context. Recall the trip to Antarctica last year featuring Al Gore and Sir Richard Branson purportedly to assess melting ice (and rising sea levels). Now Branson has purchased a low-lying island of his own in the Caribbean and claims it is not for tax avoidance purposes. And that was after a major plane order by Branson’s Virgin Air. The lesson is to watch what they do and not what they say, or preach in the case of Al Gore. Also, James Hansen padded his retirement loot with various deals with Bloomberg and other media groups for spin writing. What all did Michael Mann get for sensational spin science?
NSA tracking is in agreement also.
The Warmists are a pathetic lot, they are now exhibiting all sorts of psychological projections.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wattsupwiththat.com
Looks like a Mannian hockey stick to me, oh the sweet irony.
You should give Mann the opportunity to apologise, unreservedly, via Twitter. If he fails to do so, sue him. He has clearly libelled you.
Put a PayPal button up and I will contribute to your legal fund.
ddpalmer, that Salon article is interesting in how it is presented. Both the web-link and the title indicate Koch brothers donated large amounts to Heartland, and the by-line has the figure $24 million. However the reality in the text has only $25,000 to Heartland.
This is a typical Modus Operandi. They will repeat anything that helps their cause, no matter how untruthful. When exposed, they just move on and repeat the lie somewhere else.
Bragging about your high ratings is not nice. It is OReilly level foolish.
Congratulations Anthony. I thought the Bounce reading was interesting, with WUWT at 37.7%, down 12%. I guess that means where ~50% of WUWT visitors once looked no further, almost 2/3rds are staying around to read more.
MikeN says:
October 15, 2013 at 8:20 am
It is customary to put /sarc after a comment (if it is done on purpose of course) to show that you were being comical/sarcastic/caustic/witty/etc rather than plain dumb.
Jimbo says:
October 15, 2013 at 5:51 am
“Even Warmists are beginning to see the light.
Suzanne Goldenberg – Guardian – 16 February 2012
“…There is hardly any sign of support from big oil companies – which stand to lose heavily through action on climate change……”
Not really. Goldenberg is a liar or stupid. Big Oil stands to GAIN from CO2 restrictions because the coal competition will get punished.
That is the reason for BP having funded the CRU of UEA, for instance.
Maybe the Guardian deliberately lies about it; but I would not exclude stupidity as a possible explanation.
Just a couple of notes
1. Thanks to everyone for the kind word of encouragement and support
2. I had originally had Jo Nova’s website in the comparison, but since it only allowed 10, I opted to include Al Gore’s climate reality instead, since his million$ clearly aren’t having an effect. Jo does wonderful work and please don’t think I slighted her. Perhaps I’ll add another graph today.
DirkH says:
October 15, 2013 at 8:28 am
“Maybe the Guardian deliberately lies about it; but I would not exclude stupidity as a possible explanation.”
The relative carbon content per unit of energy in different sorts of fuels is probably a concept that is far beyond the horizon of social engineers at a hardcore leftist newspaper. So let’s go with stupidity.
Wow. Who can spend only 9 minutes here?
I thought the same thing. 9 minutes? Are you kidding? Even after an hour’s reading I often go scurrying into the internet to bone up on something and then come back here to continue reading.
I wish I had a nickel for every time a warmist lied or spread misinformation.
Yeah, I spend 10 or twenty 9 minuteses here per day. Some are contiguous, some are not.
Good of The Mann to drive still more traffic your way!
Here is why people like Mann are unable to change their minds when the facts change:
http://io9.com/the-backfire-effect-shows-why-you-cant-use-facts-to-wi-1443792942
If Mann is tweeting as an employee of a University, hit him where it hurts. Inform the University of the slander and instruct the University to order Mann to tweet a retraction. That Mann would use the purloined and faked documents to further dig himself into his slander hole makes your job easier to convince the University to make him apologize and then to gag him.
Universities don’t take kindly to one of their own saying libelous things about the University. That is a two way street. One of their own cannot say libelous things about outsiders on the University’s dime.
This is one of the premier locations to explore ideas on climate, extrapolate, conclude, and pursue interesting climatological phenomena. (as well as some other material of earth science interest)
As for the Mann issue, he and others like him are hate mongers protecting the billions they receive to promote an agenda driven scheme by which the end result is to further enrich themselves at the expense of not themselves but the rest of those suffering fools who in general who have not pulled themselves out of their bottom rear. That being said is compared to voluntary penny funding you might or might not receive. So far, with your meager resources, have risen above the mud slinging and I must agree with those who suggest to stay out of the courts as they also, to a large degree, are politically agenda driven.
There is plenty of examples of perpetual stupidity being broadcast in the lefty AGW media such as the following with regard to the dead freezing cattle in South Dakota that the vast majority of people just don’t by into. Example:
“Some wonder whether the arrival of a storm this catastrophic so early in the season is yet another red flag waving frantically to alert us that climate change is real and is happening all around us. For example, ClimateCentral.com indicates in a response to a comment about this snowstorm, “[U]nusually heavy snowstorms like this one, which broke all-time records, are not inconsistent with what we’re already seeing due to manmade global warming—increased extreme precip events.”
Consider the millions and billions spent on promoting AGW and what have they accomplished? Accusatory rhetoric? Libelous comments? Demonizing by standers?
Continue to sound the trumpet of simple logic, good science, and clear thinking. Truth will prevail.
Pamela Gray says: “If Mann is tweeting as an employee of a University, …”
Not sure that matters, Penn State policy says HR64 says (my bold):
“Faculty members are citizens, members of learned professions, and representatives of this University. When the faculty member speaks or writes as a citizen, the faculty member shall be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but the special position in the community held by the faculty member imposes special obligations. As a person of learning and an educator, the faculty member is expected to remember that the public may judge the profession and institution by his/her utterances. Hence, the faculty member agrees at all times to be accurate, to exercise appropriate restraint, to show respect for the opinions of others, and to make every effort to indicate that he/she is not an institutional spokesperson.”
And Penn State policy AD47 says (my bold):
“Professors, guided by a deep conviction of the worth and dignity of the advancement of knowledge, recognize the special responsibilities placed upon them. … They practice intellectual honesty.”
If Dr Mann. has been informed of the inaccuracies of such accusations before, then repeating them is not intellectual honesty (AD47) and he is not being accurate (HR64).
HR64: http://guru.psu.edu/policies/OHR/hr64.html
AD47: http://guru.psu.edu/policies/AD47.html
Pippen Kool says:
October 14, 2013 at 5:37 pm
“but for the record I’ve never gotten a dime from the Koch brothers”
Maybe Mann is basing his statement on your receiving funding from Heartland, and the Koch brothers funding Heartland for the explicit purpose of undermining climate research.
========================================================================
All very well. Except they don’t. They fund other research. Mann’s pathetic, and infantile. Were I his employer, I’d be appalled by him and furious at what he Tweets.
Richards in Vancouver says:
October 14, 2013 at 5:46 pm (Edit)
Nobody goes to WUWT any more. It’s too crowded.
🙂
———————————————————————-
Beautiful 🙂
I have been coming here since early 2009, before it was cool 🙂 and it just gets better and better.
To my mind the scientific battles have all been won by the skeptics and we are now in the political wars. Sometimes when I contemplate the huge, warm, machine building unreliables and pushing up prices instead of sea levels it gets a bit daunting but I take courage in the knowledge that nothing good can be built on a lie. With that firmly stamped on my heart I go on with the fight. For personal safety reasons I no longer use my real name online but I fight around the world using my alter ego, wherever I see a warmist shining up his BS and my armour and weapons are sourced from WUWT. The articles,the links, the contributors, the commenters and the gently guiding hand of Anthony Watts provide me with all the knowledge and confidence I need.
Good times people, good times.
From highflight56433’s quoting of Penn State policy HR64;
” and to make every effort to indicate that he/she is not an institutional spokesperson.”
Well Mann’s twitter page highlights his position as “Professor, and Director of Penn State Earth . It also list his location as “Penn State University, PA”. So rather than making it clear that his statements are his own words and opinions, it appears he is using his position at Penn State to attempt to bolster his authority. And his statements most definitely don’t make ANY effort to indicate that he is not an institutional spokesman. True that would be hard with twitter’s 140 character limit, but that is his problem. Maybe he shouldn’t make potentially libelous statements on twitter? Or maybe he should highlight his position at Penn State on his twitter page?
Here is a link to an article regarding the blizzard like conditions that killed the cattle in SD. Read the comments at the bottom. You will notice a similar pattern in how some people cannot think for themselves but relentlessly and religiously parrot the CAGW talking points. It is parallel to the 1930’s Germany that led to persecution and massacre. (if it angers you, good!)
http://www.care2.com/causes/100000-cows-freeze-to-death-in-freak-record-breaking-snowstorm.html
,,,but they did not have the world wide web.
This is a fantastic site. I am here too many times a day to keep score and there is always something new. A new perspective, a new point of view, certainly some new science. It’s just great.
As far that little rat fink Mann pppft. Why give him juice by even responding to that twerp other than to tell him there is always an open space for him to put up his point of view here. Just as long as he hangs around to argue with all of the commenters who will be pleased to point out why he is a rat fink and mistaken to boot. Nah, just kidding, we will be as polite as polite can be.
ddpalmer says:
October 15, 2013 at 9:41 am
From highflight56433′s quoting of Penn State policy HR64;
” and to make every effort to indicate that he/she is not an institutional spokesperson.”
I don’t think you have the right person that may have been quoting Penn State agenda… er ah … policy. 🙂
Oops! Thanks for the catch highflight56433.
Sorry climatebeagle, fat fingers and a sensitive scroll wheel got me to the wrong header.
My comment at 9:41 am should have attributed the quote from Penn State’s HR Policy to climatebeagle.
“On to this was I born. For this came I into the world. That I might bear witness to the TRUTH.”
Anthony, in regard to all matters of “science”, you have done that in brilliant and one could even argue, “perfect” fashion. With the help of the Internet (and all its accouterments), you have provided to all of us a world-wide platform for the TRUTH, even IF that “TRUTH” is blanketed in someone’s opinion. (BTW, just because it is an “opinion” does not make it false.) AND the foundation that this (WUWT) platform sits on – is FREEDOM. And dare I say, it is this freedom-to-post whatever one “thinks” is the TRUTH/FACT (with little exception) from where this platform derives its acceptance, success and fame, and YOUR detractors. That is why the likes of Mann hate you! It is NOT for what you say (or where you get your money), but because you “provide” a wide-open, world-wide platform for the TRUTH. And they can’t handle the TRUTH! And why can they not handle it? Because even though the TRUTH can be buried in and burdened with statistics, formulas, models, opinions, etc., here is the most amazing and maybe even magical thing about the IT – no matter where you are from, no matter what language you speak and if your not lazy (i.e., you put in the time and effort to study what is presented) you’ll know it, when you see it.
The TRUTH is the only thing that matters. IT will bury your adversaries and set you free. They hate the TRUTH and they hate you for “allowing” us to speak/write it here and for having created this platform. And every time they try to denigrate you or it, they expose themselves as what they really are – hucksters. And you Anthony, along with WUWT’s many great Guest Bloggers AND Contributors, are clearly not – hucksters.
Keep up the good work and ALL of you/us keep supporting it.
No worries ddpalmer.
[Classy response. — mod.]
So it seems Anthony has a legit letter to write to the University with the reasonable expectation this will be rectified to Anthony’s satisfaction. I would send it to a local to the University and every public newspaper as well.
It’s the lying that destroys his credibility. If he’ll lie about one thing, it must be assumed that he’ll lie about anything.
[AKA: Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. — mod.]
WUWT addictive? I should say so. Keep it up.
Cheers David
Mann is the gift that keeps on giving. He’s been making me laugh for years now.
Thanks for your blog Anthony, it is fascinating. Sometimes you and your posters are a bit over my head but I try to follow anyway. Keep up the good work!
Anthony … are you tracking Michael Mann’s tweets, today? He’s still at it … big time. Among other things, he just said you got $88k from Heartland.
To fellow WUWTers who say don’t get involved with legal action with Mann can I point out:
1. Mann’s tweet is clearly questioning AW’s integrity and motives when taken in context. Mann has for years commented about the Koch brothers, their motives, and called into question their integrity and bona fides. He directly links AW to those aspersions and in effect tars him with the same brush. It is a serious attack on AW considering that Mann’s followers and others will know the context of Mann’s historic comments about the Koch brothers.
2. If the tweet goes unanswered (and I mean in the context of AW’s legal rights) then Mann is able to continue to pretend to be the righteous party – i.e. “No-one has formally denied that what I say is true”.
3. It is about time someone stepped up to this odious little Mann who gives it out but runs to his own, as I understand it, third party funded lawyers when he gets it back.
4. AW will NEVER have to worry about the financial cost of such proceedings because we will bury him in money if necessary.
5. It is worth fighting for. AW should never underestimate what he does here. This is citizen participation at its best. This IS about the establishment trying to silence the people and claim the ground for itself. Mann’s tweet is one odious example of the middle finger that citizens have been putting up with for many years.
Resourceguy says:
October 15, 2013 at 7:30 am
. Now Branson has purchased a low-lying island of his own in the Caribbean and claims it is not for tax avoidance purposes. And that was after a major plane order by Branson’s Virgin Air.
Branson has owned Necker Island since around 1978. Hardly”Now” he has purchased. In fact he has just “sold” it two his two children.
Thanks Anthony, you are doing a great job.
Anthony … he is using this as his source for the $88k Heartland accusation.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute#Leaked_documents
It’s is Section 3 “Leaked Documents.”
Congratulations Anthony. I always wonder how you (and a few helping hands) can produce so many articles a day and manage the amount of comments every day. Anyway thanks a lot for all your (and the other moderators) hard work!
@TPG yes he’s certainly giving himself enough rope. Never interrupt an enemy when they are making a mistake.
@Keitho says: October 15, 2013 at 9:33 am
Were this about “climate change”, your jubilation would be understandable. It’s not, and the juggernaut will continue to steam onwards
IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer, speaking in November 2010, advised that: “…one has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth…”
http://www.cfact.org/2013/02/06/global-warming-was-never-about-climate-change/#sthash.nhhJUcYQ.dpuf
I have no “Kochs” in my ancestral tree . . .
I don’t even have oily skin – so I’m certainly not “Big Oil” . .
. . . and I’m hitting the tip bucket.
Guess that makes me a denialist – and – a conspirator.
I like the company.
Since my independent nature can make me a PITA from time to time here I’m going to drop $200 into the tip jar today as atonement and a peace offering for the mods. This is a gift to all of us as we and the world benefit from this site. Perhaps others who have been bluntly honest in sharing an opinion will join me in a strong show of loyal support despite occasional strong disagreement over details. This is not an admission of guilt! 🙂
Plus it puts me in a peer relationship with people in high places to be part of the “big money machine” that make this site possible /wink. Move over, Koch Brothers!
[Reply: Thank you, dp. This mod also contributes at least $50 a month to Anthony. We do not get paid. Our payment is the truth. — mod.]
Anthony is perhaps “destroying the world” by saving it.
Thanks for it all.
Jolly good. Contribution on its way.
Popularity certainly does not necessarily equate to the quality of the science presented or discussed. Especially considering almost all of the visitors to this site do not have the depth of knowledged of the subject presented to critcally evaluate what is being presented.
The UK Guardian newspaper probably has a reputation outside this country that does not reflect that it is actually a loss-making paper with a falling readership. Having its own TV network known as the BBC may help with this distorted view and is probably where most copies of the paper actually go.
One thing is for sure. If a lawsuit does proceed Mickey can’t claim he didn’t know what he said wasn’t actionable. I mean, he’d think it was actionable if somebody said he going bald!
My only concern would be that the people that pay his legal bills have pockets deeper than what Anthony gets from “Big Oil”. (Even my pockets are deeper deeper than that!)
That reads like a confession.
=======================================================================
I generally don’t point out things like this (so as to avoid being an easy target myself8-) but when someone claims that others don’t have “the depth of knowledged” they imply they have, well….
Janice Moore says:
October 14, 2013 at 6:08 pm
“We’re with you, A-th-y — all the way.”
Janice, I’m from FL USA.
But me Mum is a proud Scouse
Go Liverpool!!!
I have to ask – is Michael Mann even remotely among the best scientists the government should be giving our tax dollars to? Is what he does even science? I think not. You can buy advocacy a whole lot cheaper than what it costs for his version.
Anthony said:
” We can be thankful that we have so many examples of climate ugliness in the realm of the Climateers, because they drive people to the other side.”
No doubt.
I was originally a skeptic intuitively – trying to make long term projections on short term observations and proxy data just didn’t “compute”. There was also the statistical issues which a more mathematically oriented friend complained loudly about.
Then I started to read some of the consensus/alarmist propaganda and supposed “refutations” of what the skeptics were saying. All I saw was pettifoggery and ad hominem insults. That just caused me to do more reading and solidified my beliefs that there was something rotten in climate Denmark.
I saw more of such demeaning, insult driven argument in discussions on an unnamed forum, where it soon became obvious that I knew more than my opponents. That’s sad actually, because here I am near the bottom in technical knowledge. I’m just clued into what the issues are, a little bit, thanks to information I find here, mostly.
Stay strong, Anthony. You are doing great work and the louder the zealots scream, the better you must be doing!
Gunga Din,
Do you think think that most of he visitors here do have the depth of knowledge to critically evaluate the science? Do you equate popularity with quality of the science and analysis?
David says:
Sue for every cent he’s got..!
Trouble is its taxpayers’ money he’s got, he’s never actually earned a dime.
Joe says:
“Do you think think that most of the visitors here do have the depth of knowledge to critically evaluate the science?”
I do.
Most readers here are interested enough in science. Whether their knowledge is from self-education, or from a rigorous education, they understand the basic issue.
That issue is CO2=cAGW. The claim that “carbon” will cause catastrophic, runaway global warming. That is the basic issue, no?
Take away the “carbon” scare, and they are left with nothing. That is why Michael Mann is screeching and wailing like a stuck pig: his assertions are now being questioned by folks who are knowledgeable about science, whether their knowledge is self-made, or provided by institutions.
Most readers here understand the basic issue. They have the depth of knowledge to critically evaluate the science. That is why the alarmist crowd is losing the debate.
Well done Anthony, keep up the good work!
Joe,
I trust the popularity of WUWT no more than I trust the power of the AGW consensus: not at all.
@ Ken L. says:
October 15, 2013 at 2:46 pm
My path to skepticism is very similar, except I started as an actual believer.
The behavior of the true believers, and the parallels of AGW belief to thos of other social dysfunctions inspired me to check the records more closely.
The AGW catastrophist case does not hold up under any sort of reasonable scrutiny.
WUWT are a class act. Thank You – please do not be distracted from your task by the drivel that leaks from the gutter.
Thanks for the warming how ever it got done. It caused all the moisture to come in to North East Texas from the Pacific and meet up with a cold front (ya cold front) and rain, rain rain.
On subject herein, in my humble opinion Mr. Mann will never get in the court house where Mr. Watts and his attorney would have a chance of massive discovery request. Even his source coded on the Hockeystick might be at risk for example.
He plays games.
He will hide behind the msm .
I for one would not hire him or work on a research team with him as it seems he has no use for real facts and honest results that can be tested by others or the real world of results of the structure built.
I’ll put in my two bobsworth too. This is a wondeful site and I wish I had far more time to read. We are moving soon internationally and I look forward to settling down a bit and really having time to learn more from WUWT and Jo Nova’s site…my favourites. Many thanks A-th-ny and all contributors. Annie.
For what it’s worth I’d respond to Mann with a press release focussing on all of Mann’s funding sources and then round up with the bigoil score. Manns bigoil vs Anthony’s bigoil. Mention Penn state and it’s complicity to libel in the release copiously.
Send copies of the press release to National and local news outlets in Penn states markets and the chancellors of the university. Make sure wattsupwiththat.com gets prominence – this is a marketting bonanza, handed to you on a silver platter.
bobl, according to Mann’s logic, he also gets funded by the Koch Brothers, as the Charles Koch Foundation donates to Penn State and Mann is at Penn State.
http://www.kochfamilyfoundations.org/pdfs/CKFUniversityPrograms.pdf
Joe says:
October 15, 2013 at 2:54 pm
Do you think think that most of he visitors here do have the depth of knowledge to critically evaluate the science?
———————
If I’m walking down a city street and a scruffy vagrant approaches me and wants to sell me a genuine Rolex out of a paper sack, which contains many, must I be a trained and certified watchsmith in order to excercise skepticism?
My signature-quote on FR is:
.
. . . “Conspiracy theories are the favored tools of the weak-minded.”
.
and I think it is fully operative when it comes to this recent lunacy (loon-acy?) of Mann’s (and the usual ‘others’ as well) …
.
“a genuine Rolex ”
I wish there was a forum where professional scientists (skeptics and pro-agw) could openly debate each other. But that it is not how it works, Instead in most cases, you have each side’s work presented by others who don’t publish their own work. And lay people who go to those sites often don’t get exposure to the other side. I don’t find that very satisfying.
@ Rob Roy — you do your mum proud. Glad you enjoyed that video. Over 95,000 people singing at once is pretty wonderful.
*********************************
(re: Charles Nelson at 1:16am today)
The latest key ruling in Mann v. N.R.O. (National Review Online) Mark Steyn, and C.E.I. (filed Oct. 12, 2012) was on October 2, 2013:
If you go to the link below, you can see a bit more of the case details. On Oct. 9, 2013, Judge Weisberg (who replaced Judge Combs-Green) denied what was essentially Mann’s attempt to prevent the appeal by Mark Steyn, et. al.. When Steyn, et. al. could not get Combs-Green to reconsider her clearly erroneous Order Denying Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss last summer, the defendants appealed. They needed the case to stop while they do that and Judge Weisberg said, effectively, “Okay” and said, essentially, “Yeah, Mann, you can write a memorandum to protest this” (and the defendants, likewise, will file a memorandum countering Mann).
Superior Court, D.C. (U.S.A.)
https://www.dccourts.gov/cco/maincase.jsf
BTW: N.R.O., Steyn, and C.E.I., for all their popularity are not “deep pockets” — they can use all the financial help they can get, so, if you can, go to nro.com? or cei.org? and help them!
They are fighting on the front lines for Freedom of Speech.
DB,
“That issue is CO2=cAGW. The claim that “carbon” will cause catastrophic, runaway global warming. That is the basic issue, no?”
No not really. The issue is the science behind the theory. You have to have a pretty detailed knowledge of the research to understand that science or to criticize it.
Okay — sorry for that link being back to the opening Search Cases page (the link stays the same even though your search is displayed on the screen).
1. In the Name boxes, type: STEYN, MARK — file date: 10/12/12
2. Click on “Search”
3. Click on “Case Details” and scroll down on screen that appears
Joe, go look up “issue” and “evidence” — when you understand the difference, come back.
Further, you obviously either do little reading of WUWT posts or you have an impaired memory. Nearly every DAY, A-th-y posts articles containing the CAGW “science,” which, in turn, real scientists debate on the accompanying WUWT thread. You come off as ignorant of the site or as deliberately disingenuous. Cure for the first: start reading; for the second: silence.
If you are genuinely worried about the other non-scientist readers of WUWT not being able to understand, post the evidence for the other side yourself. Otherwise, don’t worry. The other readers will take care of their own need for information.
You sound like a typical liberal: forever treating adults like they are children in need of a nanny.
Somehow, I think you really don’t care whether non-science readers of WUWT understand… .
Joe,
Funny the unwashed masses seem to have come to terms with most credible fields of science and technology, but this AGW seems to allude everyone but the most select few scienfific geniuses… Yeah, and Algore and Rachel Maddow
Nice to know, Anthony. Nice to know…
Does Alexa allow you to assess any semblance of “unique visitors” to a site on any sort of frequency? It would be very funny to see if all the page visits to SkS and RC are actually from a very small group of people who drop in repeatedly all day and evening long.
Evidence of name calling and attempts to change the subject is a sign that the warmists are losing the ‘climate wars’. The politicians, media, and the public will eventually abandon the warmists. There are other issues to spend money on. There is no extreme AGW problem to solve. The developed countries are deeply in debt there are no surplus funds to waste on green scams that do not work.
The so called skeptics do not need to name call. The increase in atmospheric CO2 is on the whole beneficial to the biosphere, lukewarm warming with most of the warming occurring at higher latitudes which will and have resulted in the biosphere expanding. The biosphere is significantly more productive biosphere due to the affect of the increase in atmospheric CO2 on C3 plants. The central environmental issue is preservation of habitat not the increase in CO2.
As science – observations, logic, and reason – is on the side of the called skeptics (the planet’s response to a change in forcing is to resist the forcing, negative feedback; planetary cloud cover increases or decreases in the tropics rather than amplify forcing change, positive feedback) and trillions of dollars have been wasted on green scams that do not work, the so called ‘skeptics’ can present the issues and new observations, without spin or propaganda.
“Nearly every DAY, A-th-y posts articles containing the CAGW “science,” which, in turn, real scientists debate on the accompanying WUWT thread.’
Do you think most people here read and understand those papers. Or do they simply accept the author’s interpretation of those findings?
For people like Joe who claim that you have to be a, presumably, trained scientist to understand science, scientific methodology, practices, data, experiment, observation and results. There are dozens of people who were not trained scientists at all and yet made some of the most important scientific and technological discoveries in human history.
Joe:
At October 15, 2013 at 9:20 pm you ask;
I do not play golf and have never taken a golf swing in my life. But I can see when a golfer takes a swing, hits the ball, then misses the green.
So called ‘climate science’ is trivially simple in comparison to real sciences. Many here have much more knowledge and experience of real sciences than is needed to understand ‘climate science’ papers. Several of that many would point out if “the author’s interpretation of those findings” were erroneous: indeed, on the very rare occasions when that has happened there have been competitions to be first and best in pointing it out.
When most people are told “there is the ball and there is the green which the ball missed” then most people can see the truth of the matter.
Richard
Patrick:
At October 16, 2013 at 12:14 am you say
Of course you are right. And in support of your point I copy to here something I recently wrote in another WUWT thread.
Absence of credentials provides evidence of nothing. However, it is more likely that a credentialed person will provide quality work than an uncredentialed person. Which is NOT to say that every uncredentialed person is incapable of quality work.
This is demonstrated by the following one of countless examples.
Two brothers who sold bicycles were self-taught in engineering principles and scientific experimental study and methodology. They had no academic qualifications but used the expertise they had gained for themselves to make a seminal discovery which is the foundation of all aeronautics. They examined their ideas with experiments they devised and designed using wind tunnels they devised and designed. Then they demonstrated their findings with a full-scale working model. Finally, they published their work in a magazine about bee keeping.
The value, importance and quality of their work is not demonstrated by their lack of formal education, their lack of credentials, the lack of peer review for their work, and/or where they published that work.
The value, importance and quality of their work is demonstrated by, for example, the AirbusA310.
Richard
“richardscourtney says:
October 16, 2013 at 3:54 am
The value, importance and quality of their work is demonstrated by, for example, the AirbusA310.”
A mere toy! How about the A380? But better, a little known fact about Einstein, he with a mate (Name eludes me), developed an electromagnetic pump that made ammonia based domestic refrigerators safer. Were they trained in said field? But then Freon appliances came on-stream. Yes, our points are completely valid and disproves the claims of the likes of “Joe” etc.
– – – – – – – – –
Joe,
Several points.
First, WUWT and numerous other sites are effective science educational experiences for anyone, including some professionals.
Second, science thinking is not distinguishable from formal reasoning. Homo Sapiens has the capacity to reason.
Third, each person chooses to use their natural reasoning capacity or not. If they choose to use it they choose what to use it on and with what priority. Science has its subjects and priorities.
Fourth, debate is crucial to freedom, especially in science. This is debate.
Fifth, this isn’t the restricted environment of academia. It is a clearly more open marketplace of ideas. A lot of open trading going on.
Joe, you add value here and you make me appreciate the increase in the interest in science that occurs here. The next generation of scientists being created here can improve on the past.
John
Hey Joe. I’m a simple WUWT reader. Some of the science gets past me (statistics mostly)
Here’s from grade school:
The Scientific Method: A theory is profferred. If this theory can be proved wrong, It must be retracted and re-formed to include the knowledge gained in the earlier dis-proval or it is rejected out-of-hand.
CAGW theory (as it is embodied in climate models) was dis-proved when nobody could find the “Tropospheric Warm Zone” (a critical prediction of the models).
Where is the re-worked theory?
No one reworked anything. Shrill claims of “The Science is Settled” came instead.
Even grade school science has been abandoned by the warmistas.
“We can be thankful that we have so many examples of climate ugliness in the realm of the Climateers, because they drive people to the other side.”
eheh
Brilliant stuff Anthony and WUWT and thank you for all you do.
Richard Courtney and Patrick, your Airbus examples do mightily confirm the efforts of the Wright Bros., however…. (ahem) I think that the Boeing 747 (and 707 and 727 and 757) does them even prouder. GO, BOEING! #(:))
Forget your Airbus and your Boeing. I made the best application of heavier than air flight back when I was a kid. I haven’t done it again in years.
Take a short piece of thin walled PVC that is less than .5 inches in diameter. Seal one end. (I dipped it into 5 minute epoxy.)
Take a balsa wood airplane. (I used a bi-wing model.)
Attach the tube to the bottom of the plane.
Test fly to be sure it is balanced and flies level or climbs. (You don’t want it to dive!)
Break the stick part off of a bottle rocket ……
(We really need to reform the voting laws in the US. Imagine laws that for years let a kid vote!)
LOL, Gunga Din — I was the bottle rocket queen (until age 25…. er, no, I still haven’t grown up, just got tired of trying to tie all their little fuses together and that seemed like a good number to end on)! You were an inventive fellow with a lot of common sense — JUST what we need in voters (seriously). If only they were not so easily bought off with candy and free video games… .
Keep up the good work, Anthony. Your British audience is very grateful.
You seem to think that science is a popularity contest. It is not. The number of hits on your website is completely irrelavent. You can be very popular and very wrong. The fact is that greenhouse gases (CO2 and Methane) are increasing in the atmosphere and that is causing the climate to warm. The CO2 seems to be primarily human generated, the methane seems to be generated as cold reservoirs warm. All the rest of the arguments are where or what or how the heat is being expressed. These details are important in the short term, but the long term results are the same. The only real effect that climate change denial is having is to cause delay in addressing the issue. Which leads to a hotter future.
D. Dimas says:
Your perception is wrong. Nobody here thinks so. Science is, in fact, very unpopular. It is difficult to do and its results are often disappointing.
Excellent comment.
If I may be so bold, I encourage you to read this article on WattsUpWithThat in its entirety if you haven’t already: “Scientific Critique of IPCC’s 2013 ‘Summary for Policymakers’”
That goes for everybody. WUWT provides a lot of good articles, but this is among the very best.
D.Dimas says:
“The fact is that greenhouse gases (CO2 and Methane) are increasing in the atmosphere and that is causing the climate to warm.”
I don’t think you will find anybody here that doesn’t agree with your first point and most people here probably agree, in general, with your second claim.
“All the rest of the arguments are where or what or how the heat is being expressed.”
And that is where your thought process jumps the tracks and enters the world of ‘the consesus’ and leaves the world of logic.
The ‘rest of the argument’ is how much effect the increase in GHG’s has on the climate. How much direct temperature increase they cause and how much feedback the rest of the climate system has. The IPCC claims that the feedback is strongly positive and doubles or triples the direct effect of GHG’s, yet the real world data doesn’t agree with the IPCC models’ ouput. And it seems new climate mechanisms and feedback loops are being discovered every year.
If a 3rd-grader claimed to understand quantum mechanics I would doubt their claim as it would be unusual for them to understand all the mechanisms involved. So why do you believe the IPCC when they ADMIT they don’t understand, or even know, all the mechanisms involved in the climate system?
I was just reading my notes from John Ridpath’s lecture “The Philosophical Origins of Marxism”.
Michael Mann’s behaviour is consistent with Marxism. Notable aspects:
– deterministic thus end is inevitable, together with
– struggle with ownership
– contradictions are good (somewhat like the old Greek philosophy that believed that strife was necessary else the world would cease existing – Greeks were looking for the essential thing that made the world, they cycled through change, fire, etc in theorizing)
– processes matter, not entities
– history determines peoples desires
Note denial of the mind, including free will – that and the first two items above supports notion that Anthony cannot be doing this on his own, he must have big money behind him.
But the world is full of the negative mentality of conspiracy theorists, and people who deny that the problem is their own thinking thus behaviour. Often they are skilled at blaming others, skilled in making fallacious arguments.
Michael Mann seems increasingly like an angry loose cannon. That’s consistent with another John Ridpath lecture in which he observes that people without a sound means to knowledge, from a basic foundation, often get angry as they realize their way isn’t working but don’t know how to do better. I suggest they can’t give up their past, they are emotionally attached to it, emotions are one of their means to knowledge.